"I commend the Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) and the Information System Authority (RIA) for the contributions they have made in the past two and a half months," Ratas said, adding that the PPA's decision to keep its service points open last weekend was definitely the right one and gave a lot of people the opportunity to update their ID cards.

The prime minister said that the Estonian government will definitely put all lessons that have been learned in connection with the detected security risk affecting the ID card on the table so that it will be clear by the beginning of next year where the state can improve to better solve such crises.

In the future, the state must definitely offer better capability in updating ID cards, Ratas added.

By Thursday morning, approximately 180,000 people had updated the security certificates of ID cards containing the chip affected by a security flaw first detected in late August.

About 144,500 of these people had successfully updated their certificates remotely, while another 35,000 had done so in person at PPA service points.

Certificates suspended last Friday

Last Thursday, the Estonian government decided at a Cabinet meeting to suspend the certificates of Estonian ID cards vulnerable to a detected security risk, which numbered approximately 800,000 in total, at midnight on Friday night.

Prime Minister Jüri Ratas explained at a government press conference last Thursday evening that the Czech researchers who had initially discovered the security risk affecting all ID cards issued in Estonia beginning Oct. 16, 2014, including national IDs and the ID cards issued to Estonian e-residents, had published their research in full last week, which increased the risk of the vulnerable ID cards being exploited to a critical level.

ID cards issued prior to Oct. 16, 2014 used a different kind of chip and are not affected by the current risk; also unaffected are ID cards issued beginning at the end of last month.

Police have also urged residents who actively use their ID cards as electronic ID to also sign up for the SIM card-based Mobile ID, which is likewise unaffected by the security risk.