Czechia Calls Public Into First Load Test of Its Digital ID App

The Czech Interior Ministry and the Digital and Information Agency called on the public to open the eDoklady digital identity app simultaneously at 13:00 on Thursday, in the first public load test of the national credential, to measure how the system behaves under election-day conditions.

The test was scheduled ahead of autumn municipal elections. eDoklady is used by more than a million people and is a voluntary digital alternative to the national identity card. The agencies said the exercise would track login speed, service availability, the success rate of document updates and the behaviour of connected systems, and that the value of the data depends on how many devices connect at the same moment.

Opening the app simultaneously loads more than the application itself. Authentication runs through the National Identity Authority, and the transaction reaches the state’s base registers and other downstream services, which is why the agencies wanted real users rather than a simulation. Current legislation does not permit the creation of enough test identities to stand in for tens of thousands of real ones, and a bill that would allow it is in its second reading in the Chamber of Deputies.

“We want to find out how eDoklady holds up in a situation as close as possible to real operation under high load,” said Lukáš Klučka, first deputy minister of the interior and commissioner for digitalisation and strategic security. “By involving the public we will obtain data that cannot be fully replaced by any simulated test.”

Participants were asked to update the app in advance, confirm a PIN or set up biometric login, and check that an identity card had been added. On the day they were to open the app at 13:00, sign in with a PIN or biometrics and wait for the credential to refresh, a sequence the ministry said takes a few tens of seconds.

The exercise follows the failure of the system during the 2025 parliamentary elections, when the app buckled under demand and the head of the digital agency offered to resign. Member states across the bloc are standing up national wallets under the European digital identity framework, with Malta opening a 15.7 million euro EUDI Wallet tender.

Sources: Czech Interior Ministry, Radio Prague International

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By the ID Tech Editorial Team