Say goodbye to your physical ID card
08 January 2025
If you've ever gone through the ordeal of losing your wallet with all your cards and documents, this news might be a relief for you. The European Union believes that the future of ID cards is digital, and since 2020, it has been working on a European Union Digital Identity.
However, before Europe is connected virtually, each EU country has to implement its own reliable virtual card system. In 2024, all member states (except for Denmark, which doesn't issue identity cards at all) began issuing electronic identity cards. In Czechia, the process of implementing the new practice speeded up – electronic ID cards can now be used in most areas of the public sphere as of the beginning of 2025.
 | Eliška Drobná It all comes down to the eDocuments (eDoklady) app, where you have your virtual ID saved on your phone. It sounds pretty comfortable not having to worry about carrying the physical documents with you and fearing losing them, doesn't it? Yet, apps like these raise the question of who manages our data. For instance, in 2021, Swiss citizens voted against the digital identity scheme, which was to be licenced by the state but provided mainly by private companies. In Czechia, the app is provided by a governmental agency. The government says the eDocuments app is more secure than physical cards because it uses advanced security technologies such as encryption and biometric authentication, making it harder to forge documents or misuse personal information. |
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