RIGA — Latvia’s government has given the green light for introducing electronic identification cards for its citizenry, a decision that will ultimately help Latvia embrace the electronic age to a far greater extent.

The cards, or eIDs, “will not only secure citizens’ identification while traveling abroad or receiving government or municipal services, but also authenticity in the electronic environment,” the government said in a press release.

Latvia will be the last of the three Baltic countries to introduce the eID, which first appeared in Estonia several years ago.

The cards will fulfill requirements set out in European Union regulations, which means that they can be used for travel within the 27-member bloc.

They will contain a photograph, personal data, and the so-called electronic signature that allows for online voting and making purchases and formalizing contracts via the Internet.

The other European Union member states with such eID cards are Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy and Spain, according to the government.

The government said in a statement that the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs will issue the eIDs but that servicing the cards will be outsourced to the private sector.

The eID project was drafted by the Regional Development and Municipal Affairs Ministry, which took over the former special task e-governance ministry in June last year as part of the Cabinet reshuffling.

The first cards are likely to be distributed in 2011, and the ministry hopes to issue 100,000 in the first year. By 2013, the forecast is for 700,000 eIDs to be distributed.

E-voting postponed

In related news, the government announced Tuesday that it was postponing the introduction of an e-voting system due to disagreements over who would control it – the government or the Central Election Commission – and the belief that the expected low use of electronically cast votes did not justify the high costs of establishing it.