According to the current information published by the Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak Republic, national identity cards or foreign identification documents issued before June 20th 2021, will definitively lose the validity of the electronic signature as of January 1st 2023. The possibility to log into the Slovensko.sk portal and the validity of the card as an identity document shall remain in accordance with the standard validity of the identity card.
! UPDATE! on July 12th 2022
In the view of the above, the Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak Republic once again calls on the citizens to exchange their identity cards as soon as possible, preferably in the course of summer or autumn of this year, and not to postpone the exchange of their identity cards until the end of the year, as the duration of issuing of a new identity card may be extended due to the large number of requests from identity card holders using electronic services. The exchange of new types of identity cards takes place by default at the District Directorates of the Police of individual cities (without the possibility of submitting an application online), and the amount of the administrative fee for the exchange of an identity card is EUR 4.50.
Our law firm recommends to the users of electronic services who have not yet proceeded to the exchange of their identity card to do so in due time pursuant to the guidelines of the Ministry of the Interior and therefore avoid undesirable consequences.
Shall you have any questions, please do not hesitate to our lawyers.
In reference to the information published by the public authorities, we would like to clarify that as of June 26th 2021, the certification of the current device for e-signatures on identity cards and foreign identification documents (hereinafter referred to as the “card“) will end and therefore it will not be possible to further issue certificates for a qualified e-signature thereon. In this context, we can examine the following alternatives.
In the first case, if you are a public authority, legal entity or its organizational unit, your electronic mailbox has been automatically activated since its establishment (that is, since the establishment of the entity) and you are entitled to use your issued certificate for electronic signing to the same extent as before. The abovementioned applies until the end of 2022 (without the obligation of any further action), even in the case of an earlier voluntary activation by a natural person / natural person – entrepreneur.
However, if you are, for example, a natural person or a natural person – entrepreneur, and as a card holder you have voluntarily not activated it to this date, you can activate it only until June 25th, 2021. Following the activation, the activated e-signature certificate shall be valid in the same way as in the previous point, i.e., until the end of 2022.
After June 25th, the Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak Republic will issue cards with a newly implemented device – a chip, and in case you shall not have the time to activate your current card according to the point 2, the only option for activation and subsequent use of a qualified e-signature will be to request the issuance of a new card. However, following the June 25th, this will be charged with an administration fee.
For further clarification, we also mention the fact that the automatic activation continues to apply only to the entities listed in the point 1. above, which in practice means that electronic submission and electronic official documents are delivered electronically solely if the electronic mailbox is activated. In case you are, for example, a natural person – entrepreneur, and you have not activated your electronic certificate before June 25th 2021, you shall not be worried about the delivery of official documents to your electronic mailbox, provided that you have voluntarily not activated your electronic mailbox.
