Every Polish citizen 18 years of age or older residing permanently in Poland is required to have an identity card (Polish: Dowód osobisty, lit. 'personal proof') 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).
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 that, the card access 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 or village in Poland or foreign country's name), date of issue, repeated card number, issuing authority, legal ascendant(s) name(s) and personal number (PESEL – Powszechny Elektroniczny System Ewidencji Ludności – 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 the card access number is represented in a bar code.
The Polish identity card also functions as a travel document within Europe (except Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and United Kingdom) as well as French overseas territories, Turkey, Georgia, Montserrat and on organized tours to Tunisia instead of a Polish passport.
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