Privacy by Design with High Customer Flexibility

For over 20 years, e-Boks has established itself as the preferred solution for secure digital post in the Danish home market. Both senders and end users are so familiar with the platform that it is approaching the status of a national standard. 

In international markets, where e-Boks is currently experiencing notable interest and expanding its business, the situation is different. Customers' starting points and needs are more diverse. So, despite many similarities, e-Boks has chosen to approach the two markets differently – including from a technological standpoint. This is explained by CIO Jes Rude Dragsted, who has been leading the further development of the e-Boks platform since 2022. 

“The fundamental need in the Danish market is unanimous for the market as such, and hence our shared e-Boks solution is targeted at the entire market. So, when we develop new functionality, it is made available to all our customers, even though there are features – such as action-on-documents – that can be enabled or disabled. Internationally, our approach is still in a ramp up phase and hence, based on what the individual organisation requires, and of cause the nonfunctional requirements we have gained knowledge about by operating in the Danish market for more than 20 years” Dragsted begins. 

Freedom of Choice in Hosting 

Under Jes Rude Dragsted’s leadership, e-Boks’ development team has in recent years built a new version of the e-Boks platform, tailored to international clients. The solution offers a high degree of flexibility and can be customized to meet individual customer needs – including configuration, hosting options, and integrations. 

“We’ve managed to create a state-of-the-art technological solution that is so flexible it can operate in many different data center environments. By default, we are hosting on Amazon Web Services, meaning you get your own AWS instance with our solution on top unless you choose otherwise. However, we fundamentally follow a cloud-agnostic approach, so the solution can be ported to other cloud providers if preferred – for example, a Microsoft-based data center or a private data center, which some customers opt for,” he explains. 

International customers can also decide whether e-Boks should support the software stack or whether they want to involve their own operational providers. 

While Danish users typically access the branded e-Boks interface via PC, iOS, and Android, international solutions often need to be more anonymously integrated into other platforms, such as public authority systems. Therefore, e-Boks has developed technical solutions that allow for rapid integration. 

In practice, this means that the customer gets the desired e-Boks functionality, but under their own front-end – such as a website or app. 

Privacy as the Common Denominator 

Across all markets, one constant remains: a clear demand for a solution that is designed with privacy in mind on all fronts, addressing the limitations of conventional email communication. 

And privacy has only grown in importance in recent years, Jes Rude Dragsted emphasizes. 

“Customers want to engage with us because they care about privacy and because it is deeply embedded in the way our solution is designed. Ten to fifteen years ago, you could get away with selling a solution that wasn’t fully compliant – but that’s no longer the case. That’s why we invest a lot of energy in meeting all applicable security standards, including DORA and various certifications,” he says, and continues: 

“When you look at how we’ve designed our solutions, they’re state-of-the-art according to best practices within IT security. This includes everything from document security to perimeter security and a deeply integrated cloud security in the international platform. All data is collected in our Security Observations Center (SOC), where we maintain a comprehensive overview and, for example, receive alerts if there are pending patches or unimplemented security releases.” 

Real-Time Monitoring 

The current geopolitical climate, with tensions on several fronts, also manifests among customers in the form of concern about foreign powers accessing their data. 

In the e-Boks’ security operation center, Dragsted and his team therefore employ a range of modern security technologies. Among other things, they can monitor in real time how many have attempted to log into a national solution from other countries. They also regularly train for scenarios such as hacker attacks. 

“Our most important task is to ensure that you’re in a secure environment where the sender and recipient can communicate without being disturbed or monitored – by us or anyone else. We don’t access any data without 100% customer consent, and in the international setup, we cannot access or decrypt data at all – only the customer can do that,” he stresses. 

Continuous Development 

Although the international platform has fewer years behind it than the Danish one, the “sales pitch” is now behind us, says Dragsted. e-Boks has implemented several solutions within the new technical environment, the concept has been validated, and the team has gained the necessary experience. Now, the development work focuses on performance optimization. 

“The good thing about IT is that it’s always evolving. That’s why we run a production track and an R&D track in parallel. In the R&D track, we’re transitioning to some new frameworks that we find technically interesting and that perform better. So, we’re working a bit under the hood at the moment.” 

In addition, there is a clear goal of expanding the international solution to more countries, where it can address a range of challenges currently facing both public authorities and private companies. 

“In many of the countries where we have ongoing dialogues private companies are already well digitalized. In Germany, for example, banks are extremely efficient. But communication between the authorities and businesses or citizens is a problem, because public digitalization has lagged. That’s where e-Boks could be a very fitting solution,” Jes Rude Dragsted points out. 

Although the solution may obvious from a Danish perspective, he also acknowledges that the transition towards secure, privacy-focused communication takes time. 

“In Denmark, we’re far ahead because of our long experience with digital post. We process 582 million documents through e-Boks each year. But it’s also important to remember that it’s taken Denmark 20 years to get to this point. So, I’m sure more countries will come on board in time,” he concludes.