Trust in digital ID grows

TALLINN - Estonia-based telecommunication company EMT’s customers have made over nine million Mobile ID transactions since 2007, reports LETA. An average Mobile ID user makes 26 transactions a month: logins to online services and digital signing, including bank transfers, EMT said in a statement.
“EMT Mobile ID has been on the market for five years and the number of transactions has grown each month. This shows that people increasingly value this convenient method of identity verification and digital signing,” said Lauri Laheb, head of the Product Management Division at EMT.

According to the Certification Center, the number of Mobile ID transactions has been one million a month in the last months, and 85 percent of those are bank transactions.
According to Anro Pae, head of the E-Channels Department at Swedbank, the importance of Mobile ID grows due to the increase in smartphone and tablet usage, as it is not possible to use ID cards in mobile devices.
“It is very [popular] to log in to Swedbank’s mobile app with Mobile ID, and therefore, already 35 percent of visits made via the app are done with Mobile ID. Additionally, Mobile ID users are the best advertisers - current users happily recommend it to friends,” added Arno Pae.

Mobile ID is a state-certified identification document on a mobile phone’s SIM card, and is therefore always with the user.
Mobile ID enables the same operations as an ID card, thus replacing an ID card reader, which must be connected to a computer. Mobile ID enables secure e-operations, like logging in to online banks or signing documents on computers and mobile phones in Estonia and abroad. With Mobile ID, secure e-operations can be done on computers which do not have an ID card reader. The Mobile ID and ID card are the property of private persons and, therefore, an authorization from the company is not required for subscribing to a Mobile ID service.

For EMT customers, a subscription to the Mobile ID service is free until the end of the year. A subscription fee of ten euros, which includes the state fee, is paid by EMT on behalf of the customer.