On the Polish Internet, it got messy. The main news portals scare with headlines about the “suspension” and “end” of the mCitizen application, which already uses 11 million Poles.
But before you panic and look for plastic IDs at the bottom of the drawer, let's take a deep breath. We looked at government papers – the digital apocalypse does not endanger us, although we are waiting for technological cleaning.
The full confusion broke out after the Ministry of Digitization published a draft amendment to the Trust Services Act. The explanatory memorandum contains an unfortunate conviction that the current mCitizen cannot be adapted to the fresh requirements of the European Union and that it will so be essential to make a "completely fresh solution" and yet not to keep 2 separate applications.
For many services this was adequate reason to reject the death of mCitizen. However, fact is much little sensational and is based on technological nuances of EU law.
What's up with eIDAS 2.0?
The European Union is now introducing an eIDAS 2.0 regulation which requires associate States to make a "European Digital Identity Portfolio". In a very simple way: it is simply a strategy to make your digital ID or driver's licence as effective as erstwhile you rent a car in Madrid or start a bank account in Berlin.
Polish application mCitizen, although large and innovative in Europe, was based on our local, national regulations and architecture. As Paweł Makowiec of Cyber Defence24, quoted by the media, the architecture of mCitizen is so different from the EU requirements that imposing eIDAS 2.0 standards on it would be like trying to install an electrical motor in the old polonaise – it can be, but better and safer to build a fresh product from scratch.
The app is dead. Long live the app.
The fact that the ministry writes about "making a fresh application" does not mean that the government will throw the mCitizen task into the trash with its 11 million users, features specified as mSkulk, ePayment or AI assistant system.
mCitizen enters in 2026 with Polish AI
The most likely script (which was mentioned in the method side of the task by the Central Centre of Information Technology) was the creation of mCitizen 3.0 application. Under the hood, it will be a completely fresh programme, built on the EU's engine of the European identity portfolio. For the average user, however, small will change – just 1 day we will download from App store or Google Play a fresh version or a fresh application with a red icon to which our modules and services will be smoothly moved.
The government explicitly mentions "transitional period" in documents, which means that the old and fresh architecture will function in parallel, giving time for peaceful migration.
Mood tone
Panic sowing on the basis of a dry legal justification for the bill is the regular bread of the net today. The absence of an authoritative calming position from the Ministry of Digital Affairs in the first hours after publication surely did not aid the case.
However, we can be certain of 1 thing: no 1 in the government will commit political suicide, excluding from the most popular and best rated state application in Poland's history. mCitizen will most likely change its interior code, possibly change its name to a more "European" (but that's just our conjecture), but its functionality will be with us – and it will be extended to the full European Union. alternatively of being afraid, we should keep our fingers crossed so that this giant data migration goes without major server failures.
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