Polish identity card

Every Polish citizen 18 years of age or older residing permanently in Poland is required to have an Identity Card (Dowód osobisty) issued by the local Office of Civic Affairs. Children as well as Polish citizens living permanently abroad are entitled, but not required, to have one. Identity cards are valid for a period of 10 years (5 years for children under the age of 5 on the date of issue).

Polish national identity card
(Dowód osobisty)
Polish national ID card – 2019 version
(front and back)
TypeIdentity document, travel document (in the listed countries)
Issued by Poland
First issued1928 (optional)
1951 (obligatory)
Valid in
EligibilityPolish citizenship
Expiration10 years (5 years if bearer aged less than 5 when issued)
CostFree

The front bears a photo of the holder, surname, forenames, date of birth, nationality, card number, gender and expiry date. It also contains the coat of arms of Poland and a security hologram partially covering the photo (which makes forgery harder). In the bottom right corner a special security element can be found - the photo of the person and the year of expiration, but only one of them can be seen at a time, depending on the angle of view. Below the CAN (Card Access Number) number can be found. That number is necessary to connect with an embedded microchip (when using e-signature for instance).

On the back can be found the holder's place of birth (city in Poland or foreign country's name), date of issue, repeated card number, issuing authority, parents' names and personal number (PESEL - Powszechny Elektroniczny System Ewidencji Ludności[1] - Universal Electronic Population Database). Below the card number the bearer's photo is repeated and some of the personal data in machine-readable form. On the top of the back side, special barcode can be found - it's a CAN number in the barcode form.

The Polish identity card also functions as a travel document in the countries and territories listed to the right.

The 2015 issue

Since 2015, ID cards no longer contain the holder's registered residential address or a specimen of their signature.

The security features include a small map of Poland at the top centre which changes colour between green and violet depending on the viewing angle. There is also a micro-printing in the card's background which reveals "RZECZPOSPOLITAPOLSKA" when magnified. Both the family name and date of birth have a special raised feel.[2]

The 2019 issue

Since March 2019, ID cards contain a RFID chip that stores personal data as well as a number of digital certificates that allow to authenticate the holder or verify their identity in public or private digital systems.[3]

To connect with a chip, CAN number has to be provided, as well as PIN number (the PIN is established by the card holder while receiving a document in office). The basic e-signature (recognised the same as handwritten signature by all public facilities, like municipal offices, central administration, courts etc.) functionality is provided free of charge for all citizens age 18 or older.

New e-IDs can also be used in automatic border gates at some Polish airports (namely Warsaw Chopin Airport, Modlin Airport and Poznań–Ławica Airport). Gates can also be used by all EU/EEA/CH e-passport holders, but only Polish citizens can use their e-IDs; other EU electronic identity cards are not accepted (but are fully accepted, as well as non-electronic IDs, when proceeding through manual border control performed by Border Guard officer).

Open source licence violations

Software embedded in polish eID is thought to violate licence of OpenSC library.[4] Issuer of the document won't publish the code that uses OpenSC, because of "national security concerns".[5]

Card number validation

The card number consists of 3 letters followed by 6 digits (for example, ABA300000), of which the first digit (at position 4) is the check digit.

Each letter has a numerical value, as shown below:

 A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

The next step is to multiply each so obtained value by its respective "weight". The assigned weights for each position are 

 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
 7 3 1 0 7 3 1 7 3

The remainder of the division by 10 of the sum of the weighted values should be equal to the check digit (indicated between asterisks in the example below).

Verification example (ID card number for this example: ABA300000):

Card number:  A    B    A   *3*   0    0    0    0    0
Value:       10   11   10   *3*   0    0    0    0    0
Weight:       7    3    1    0    7    3    1    7    3
Result:      70   33   10    0    0    0    0    0    0
Sum:         70 + 33 + 10 +  0 +  0 +  0 +  0 +  0 +  0 = 113

The remainder of the division of 113 by 10 equals 3 (113 mod 10 = 3), and is also equal to the first digit of the ID card number, so this ID card number is correct.

See also

References
  1. Rejestr PESEL
  2. Polish Ministry of the Interior and Administration website page accessed 29 Nov 2015
  3. "E-dowód osobisty a certyfikaty: Jak z nich korzystać i które są obowiązkowe?". prawo.gazetaprawna.pl. Retrieved 2019-08-26.
  4. https://github.com/OpenSC/OpenSC/issues/1992
  5. https://itbiznes.pl/oprogramowanie/e-dowod-opensc-lgpl/
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