Spain’s Central Electoral Board has cleared the MiDNI smartphone app, the country’s digital version of the national ID card, for use by voters in the general election on 29 November, according to a report by ID Tech published on 6 November. The board had suspended the app and a separate driving licence app, MiDGT, on 26 March. It has now lifted the suspension on MiDNI only; MiDGT remains barred at polling stations.
The board’s condition was that the check be “sufficiently secure”. ID Tech reported that the Interior Ministry responded by committing to a QR system. Voters would generate a temporary QR code in the app, signed by the National Police, and show it to polling staff, who would confirm it with a reader. Every one of Spain’s more than 60,000 polling stations is to receive a device running the official verifier, and an order dated 29 October requires the postal operator Correos to deliver and collect them.
The decision is being challenged. According to ID Tech, a party standing in the election, Iustitia Europa, had asked the board to keep both apps suspended and has appealed to the Supreme Court to suspend the authorisation. Its appeal asks what would happen if a connection failed, a phone battery died or a reader stopped working, and who would decide the response. ID Tech said the board’s reply did not address the ministry’s operational protocol.
The report notes that MiDNI has already been used in regional elections in Extremadura, Aragón and Castilla y León, and that it is not the EU digital identity wallet.
Reporting note: This account relies on one trade outlet, ID Tech. We have not seen the board’s decision, the ministry order or the Supreme Court filing, and the outcome of the appeal is not yet known.
Photo: Javier Perez Montes / CC BY-SA 4.0 / Wikimedia Commons
