“We had a 30% increase in the production of identity cards in the last week compared to the previous two years, that is, many more people came and applied and got the new identity card than in the last week of September” noted the General Secretary of Public Order of the Ministry of Protection of Politis, Manos Logothetis, speaking on ERT’s Newsroom show.

Referring to the appointments, he said that “it is a dynamic process. Today as we speak, the platform has already been opened for December as well, so another 50,000 appointments have been added and within this week we will go back to October and November and add new appointments”.

In addition, he added that “the phenomenon that has been observed is that in the large urban centers, mainly in the region of Attica and Thessaloniki, there is an increased desire to go and get our new identity quickly. What has this created? Although there are still around 35,000 appointments available, most of them are in the province. There are few police departments in Attica or Thessaloniki, the security departments that issue IDs, that still have an appointment available, if there is one today when we are talking about October or November”. And giving more clarifications, he noted that “there were appointments available anyway. It was appointments are divided into regular and extraordinary. We limit the emergencies, i.e. those who have lost their identity or suffered theft. These must be emergency, it cannot wait in relation to someone who already has an ID and wants to issue a new one, he cannot stay for a month without an ID. So there was a parallel system of emergency appointments in consultation with the police department.”

It is worth noting that Mr. Logothetis noted that in cases where the citizen has lost his identity “there is an additional charge and a witness is also needed if you go to the emergency department, while in the regular case you present your identity card and you avoid the suffering of the witness or the emergency department of a parable”.

Among other things, he noted that “the best thing is for someone to take the photo first, to go to a professional photographer, who will take a much faster and better photo and will be able to upload it to Hellenic’s system through myphoto Police and we will automatically take care of it for the identity card. If he can’t, he’s in a hurry or whatever, there’s a possibility for the security departments to take the photo.”

What applies to the identity cards of Greeks abroad

When asked about the identity cards of Greeks abroad, he noted that “In the old identity cards, did we issue identity cards abroad? no less than two consulates and which had already weakened because the process is extremely difficult. I have to say that the next step we will explore, once the appointments and the flow of people at the police stations are normalized, is to see if we can issue the new ID at the consulates abroad as well. It is a big project because it assumes that there will be people who will be able to do all this abroad electronically and secondly the modern identity card is an extremely secure document, it comes out under specific conditions, one of the intentions is that the internet circuit is closed which uses police. I don’t know technically if I can do exactly the same with all consulates.

“In November we will also have the citizen number on the identity card”

In addition, he added that by issuing the new identity card, we will get a new number and stressed “don’t confuse it with the unique citizen number. When the unique citizen number comes next month, it will be a separate number. This will either be printed on every identity card, issued after November, or will come to us with an email notification from the General Secretariat of Information Systems. In November we will have the citizen number on the identity card, before that we will not have it as it is not available. Now there is only a blank that says social security number but it is not listed because you don’t have it yet. The social security number does not replace all the rest, all the rest of the numbers. But it has the unique quality that it can recall the corresponding number it needs in any public service. Your VAT number is not abolished, that is, neither is your AMKA”.

In closing, Mr. Logothetis, underlined that modern IDs have many security elements that make any forgery almost impossible” while referring to the old ones he noted that “a document that was created sixty years ago is hardly reliable. Our old ID is a plain paper with a gelatin which has some lamination and could very easily be counterfeited.