The Polish government has adopted a draft law according to which the electronic ID card in the mCitizen app will be treated equally to the traditional plastic document. The information was announced by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki at a press conference after a meeting of the Council of Ministers. “The app has so far been downloaded by 9.5 million citizensR”, reports the Prime Minister’s Office. 

“It is no longer necessary to carry your driving licence or registration card, the Prime Minister announced. “A doctor can issue an e-prescription or electronic sick leave. You can also fill in your taxes online or not even do it at all, because the clerk will do it for you”, said the head of government.

The main aim of the bill is to allow only the mCitizen application to be shown in all situations that would require a plastic ID card. The proposed law is also to allow the app to be used as trusted profile authentication.

The announced changes will also include the equalisation of the status of other documents in the app with their traditional counterparts, including driving licences, student cards and the Large Family Card. It will also be possible to make payments online using the app.

According to Minister Adam Andruszkiewicz, who is in charge of digitalisation issues at the Prime Minister’s Office, the regulation will enable all matters to be dealt with electronically, which are today handled by citizens using a traditional identity card.

“This is a revolutionary change; we will become the largest European Union country with such an extensive, universally accessible digital wallet for our documents. We are living in times when, as we know, citizens are quicker to forget their wallet when leaving the house than their phone. We are meeting this challenge”, he pointed out.

Andruszkiewicz stressed that Poles are a modern society. “It is worth recalling that in Poland today we have over 15 million users of the Trusted Profile, which is our key to e-government” he said.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński