The economy ministry has drafted a bill meant to make Estonia a forerunner in rules for AI agents, ERR News reports, but experts who reviewed the draft see little point in it and some call it dangerous. Unlike a chatbot, an agent is given a task and finds its own way to complete it — for example filing a tax return or comparing phone plans.
Minister of Economic Affairs and Industry Liina Vahtras said agents would not get identities of their own. Instead a person could register an additional agent code, kept in a central database, so that public and private systems can tell the person apart from the machine acting for them. The first plan to let companies register several agents has been dropped: at first only private individuals could register, one agent each. The report mentions an e-resident who openly describes using an AI platform to deal with the Tax and Customs Board and to manage bank accounts.
Cybernetica, which helped build Estonia's e-government infrastructure, sent 11 pages of feedback and said the text is deficient and contradictory. Its development manager Arne Ansper said registration alone gives nothing without secure authentication for the agent: The security level must actually be equivalent to what we currently have with ID cards, Mobile-ID or Smart-ID.
None of the ministries approved the draft by the deadline; only the Government Office did.
ITL president Ats Albre said the direction is right but that responsibility must stay with the person. The minister hopes the amendments reach the Riigikogu by early November and stressed that registering a code would be optional.
Source: ERR News, . The text above is our own summary; the words in quotation marks are the source's.
What this means for an Estonian entrepreneur
For the owner of an Estonian company who lets software act in the e-Business Register, the Tax and Customs Board or a bank, the debate is a reminder that the person stays responsible for what the agent submits. Until any agent code exists, an agent works with the owner's own authentication, so access rights and authorisations should be kept as narrow as the task requires.
We form an Estonian company online for an e-resident and set up its first steps in the state e-services. Online company formation for e-residents
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