ENGLISH SECTION
26/05/2025 | 19:14
PM Mitsotakis: ‘The new Personal Number will be the ‘key’ to unlocking any transaction with the public sector’
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on Monday chaired a ministerial meeting for the presentation of the new Personal Citizen Number and its addition to police identification cards, noting that this will give Greek citizens, for the first time, the option to use a single identification number for all their transactions with the public sector.
“Essentially, the new Personal Number that will be assigned to every citizen becomes the ‘key’ for unlocking any transaction with the public sector. It comes to complement the existing numbers that there are already,” said the prime minister, extending his congratulations to all those who worked hard so that “we reach the point today to put the Personal Number into digital operation.”
While this seemed, on the face of it, to be a primarily technical step, Mitsotakis added, it nevertheless had “a very significant added value with respect to the overall modernisation of the state.”
The new number is envisaged to cover all uses for which the various numbers currently issued by state agencies are used, such as the tax office registration number (AFM), the AMKA social security number and the police ID number. It will be unique and not change throughout an individual’s lifetime and is expected to help improve state services, while also addressing the long-standing gaps in the interconnection of various state registers that reduced the efficiency of public sector services, as well as helping correct any mistakes that exist.
“To put this more simply, our ambition is that, from now on, each citizen will only remember a single personal number that they themselves participate in shaping, so that it is a truly personal number, in order to facilitate their communication with the public sector,” the prime minister said.
Its introduction will also be an opportunity to correct a series of mistakes in key state records, so that there is certainty that all the information concerning all Greek citizens is absolutely correct, he added.
Mitsotakis noted that the process by which the new personal number will be issued has been decided and that it will be added to the new police IDs, while the ‘blue’ IDs of the past will soon be phased out, as per European directives. In collaboration with the citizen protection ministry, the premier noted, every effort is being made to reduce waiting times for issuing new IDs.
“The new ID is in itself an important indication of the progress of the Greek state and we encourage all citizens to make haste to have one issued as soon as possible. Our job is to reduce the waiting time, especially in Athens and Thessaloniki, so that this process is completed with as few problems as possible,” Mitsotakis added.
According to government sources, one of the many benefits of the new Personal Number will be to help generate accurate and reliable statistical data.
The Personal Number will be issued via the myInfo app on the gov.gr portal, which will allow citizens to generate a part of the number. They will also be able to confirm the accuracy of their personal information and request corrections to the information filed.
The platform is expected to begin operating at the start of June, while the Personal Number will be automatically added to the new police IDs, on the back, and will be the unique feature verifying a person’s identity in the digital environment, equivalent to the ID number and photograph that verify a person’s identity in the physical world.
Digital Governance Minister Dimitris Papastergiou said: “ The Personal Number is here to do two things: one is to help citizens who struggle within the Greek State as a result of such misspellings – figurative and literal – in the state registers, and the second is to put the state registers into order, so that we do not have this multiple and often incorrect image.
“The aim is that citizens will now need only one number and not four different sectoral numbers to be served throughout the Greek State, and gradually in the private sector as well. It is a real breakthrough for Greek public administration.”
The presentation of the Personal Number was made by the Secretary General of Information Systems and Digital Governance, Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos.
During the meeting, Citizen Protection Minister Michalis Chrisochoidis provided an update on the progress in issuing new police ID cards. To date, more than 1.7 million new ID cards have been received by their holders, while 371 Issuing Services operate throughout Greece.
He noted that one million ID cards are issued every year by the crime investigation departments of the Hellenic Police throughout the country and that the effort was to now reinforce these departments with additional staff so that they remain open on Sundays.
He also invited members of the public to apply for the new ID cards at police stations outside the main urban centres while on holiday in various parts of the country, given that the waiting times there are shorter and it will be issued more quickly
source ANA-MPA
