Polish identity card

Polish national ID card (front and back)

Every Polish citizen over 18 who is resident in Poland must have an Identity Card (Dowód osobisty) issued by the local administration. Other Polish citizens are entitled to a card if they wish. Identity Cards are issued for the period of 10 years.

On the front is a photo of the owner, name, surname, date of birth, parents' names, sex and a signature.

On the right side there is the emblem of the Republic of Poland, a security hologram, date of validity and number of ID.

In the back is address, place of birth, height, eye colour, date of issuce, issuing authority and personal number (PESEL - Powszechny Elektroniczny Spis Ewidencji Ludności - General Electronic List of Population's Filing System) in the form of hologram. Below the PESEL is the ID number again and the data in machine-readable form.

Specimen of new electronic ID (project)

As of January 2013 identity cards in Poland will have an electronic chip which will function as an electronic signature, which can be used as identification over the Internet. For example, a Polish citizen will be able to pay taxes (in polish PIT - Personal Income Tax) this way.

Validation

The number on the "plastic" identity card is composed of 3 letters followed by 6 digits (for example ABA300000), of which the first digit (at position 4) is considered the check digit.

To check the validity of the ID number, one must first convert each letter into its assigned value, using the table conversion table 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 rest of the division by 10 of the sum of the weighted values should be equal to the check digit (indicated between stars 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 rest 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

• Polish nationality law

External links

• Official Site