Voters in Spain will be able to prove their identity with the MiDNI phone app at the November 29 general election, after the Central Electoral Board lifted its suspension of the digital ID on Thursday, once the Interior Ministry confirmed that every polling station would have a device with a camera and a browser running the QR verifier from the official MiDNI website.
Voters will have to generate a temporary QR code in the app and open it in front of polling station members, who will check it with the reader, a process that will take longer than checking a physical card. The code carries data signed by the National Police, and the reader confirms that it is authentic and current. Election boards will pass the decision to the more than 60,000 polling stations. MiDGT, the app that holds driver’s licenses, remains barred at the polls.
The decision, made on a request for review from the interior minister, lifts for MiDNI only a suspension imposed on both apps on March 26. The board had initially accepted them because they showed the voter’s photo and had official validity, and the Interior Ministry argued that showing the screen was enough, with no QR check. MiDNI, authorized in September 2025, had been used in regional elections in Extremadura, Aragón and Castilla y León. The People’s Party argued that voters should have to generate a QR code and have it verified, and the board then ruled that the digital ID could not be used until a “sufficiently secure” check was guaranteed.
To meet that condition, a ministerial order published on October 29 requires the postal operator Correos to deliver QR readers to polling stations along with election documents and collect them afterward, at a maximum rate of about 28 euros for each delivery and collection.
Iustitia Europa, a party running in the election, had asked the board to keep both apps suspended and to require the ministry’s technical and operational protocol for election day. The board’s reply repeats its decision without addressing the protocol, and the party has now asked the Supreme Court to suspend the authorization as an urgent precaution. Its appeal asks what would happen if a connection fails, a phone battery dies, a reader stops working or a check cannot be completed, and who would decide how to respond.
MiDNI is not the European digital identity wallet that every EU member state must offer by December 24, and the European Commission’s list of notified identification systems shows only the physical DNIe card for Spain. When presenting the app in April 2025, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said it could not be used as a travel document or to prove identity abroad.
Sources: Junta Electoral Central, Junta Electoral Central: Iustitia Europa request, Boletín Oficial del Estado, Demócrata, Demócrata: Iustitia Europa appeal, Moncloa.com, El Debate, El Español, European Commission, Garrigues, El Independiente
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By the ID Tech Editorial Team
