PPA, Elisa to open Mobile ID service points this weekend
The Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) and mobile operator Elisa will open service points in Tallinn, Tartu and Pärnu this weekend to help customers quickly sign up for and activate the SIM card-based Mobile ID service.
The Estonian government decided on Thursday evening to close the certificates of ID cards issued after Oct. 16, 2014 and vulnerable to a potential security risk Friday night at midnight after the threat of the risk being realized reached a critical level.
As the government has advised ID card holders to use the Mobile ID service as a secure alternative, the PPA and Elisa will open four service points this weekend to simplify the signup and activation process for customers.
According to Mailiis Ploomann, head of Elisa's product marketing department, the PPA has come up with a development which will enable a PPA official to confirm a Mobile ID activation request on the customer's behalf. "Thanks to this, we can operate four service points in Estonia's three biggest cities in cooperation with the state where Elisa wil conclude a Mobile ID contract with the customer and a PPA official will activate the service," Ploomann said.
The joint service points will be located at the Pinna and Tammsaare PPA service points in Tallinn, the Riia Street PPA service point in Tartu and at the Aida Street PPA service point in Pärnu.
All ID cards will remain valid as photo IDs after Friday, and it will continue to be possible to update ID cards with closed certificates at PPA service points. It will also remain possible to update information on the chip online after Friday as well.
Updating the certificates is not necessary for ID card holders who have been issued a new card with a chip not affected by the flaw, whose ID card was issued before Oct. 16, 2014, and who only use their ID card as non-electronic ID.
The number of people who have signed up for Mobile ID with Elisa has nearly tripled in the past two months. Currently, 46,000 Elisa customers use Mobile ID.
Telia: All who want Mobile ID will be served
Confident that it can manage with existing resources, telecommunications service provider Telia is not planning on increasing its ability to issue Mobile IDs.
"We do have service points where our customers can sign up for Mobile ID," Telia media relations director Raigo Neudorf told BNS. "We have more than 20 service points and 100 people, so we believed that all who want will be served."
According to Neudorf, the number of people who signed up for Mobile ID has indeed increased, but remains well within Telia's capabilities.
"Last week, we had 1,200 new customers, and the week before, the number was 600, so the number has increased twofold, but there is nothing to panic about," he said, noting that Telia can handle issuing 2,000 to 3,000 Mobile IDs daily.
Editor: Aili Vahtla
Source: BNS