A little more than half of the total number of electronic identity cards issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MOI) in the past four and a half years has been verified by the Health Insurance Fund (FZO).
"The number of identity cards that have been verified in the health insurance card by the Health Insurance Fund, at the level of Montenegro, is 142.792", they told "Vijesta" from the Health Insurance Fund, headed by Vuk Kadic.
This information is the only one that any state institution communicates to the public regarding the number of electronic ID cards that are "active", that is, the digital certificates on them have been activated.
"Vijesti" interlocutors informed about the topic state that by monitoring the activated certificates, the state could, along with analytics, use that data in order to improve the service.
Such information, however, is not announced by the department of internal affairs, which he heads Danilo Šaranović, which issues personal documents to citizens. The data communicated by the Ministry is the number of issued ID cards, and as they recently told "Vijesta", from June 2020 to December 4, they issued 346.842 electronic ID cards.
They said that they do not know how many of the issued ID cards are "active" and that it is impossible for them to have such information at all, they said several times, earlier in a statement to the daily newspaper "Vijesti", and a few days ago, in a guest appearance in "Boja jutra" ", the morning program of Television "Vijesti".
"We, as the MUP, cannot know that we have that information, and we cannot know how many persons actually activated the certificates. When you apply for an ID card and collect it, you receive a security envelope containing activation instructions and access passwords, PIN and PUK. As MUP, we do not have access to that data, it is data that can and must be known only to the LK holder and, accordingly, we do not activate certificates in the MUP, nor are certificates activated on the portal, they are activated locally, on the personal computer of the holder cards," she said recently in "Colors of the Morning" Aleksandra Džankić, an employee in the Directorate for Personal Documents and Residence in the Ministry of the Interior of Montenegro.
They told the daily "Vijesta" the same in 2022. Then they said that in order to protect and secure the data that is contained in the envelope that the citizen receives when downloading the electronic identity card, which contains the PIN/PUK, officers in the MUP branches cannot activate certificates for citizens:
"Because that way they would come into possession of the said data. The officials of this Ministry provide all the necessary information to the citizens, in order to explain the procedures, while the contact phone number of this Ministry is available to the citizens, where they can get information and get an explanation for any doubts regarding the activation of the certificate".
The MUP started issuing "smart", electronic ID cards in 2020, based on the Law on Amendments to the Law on Identity Cards. It was planned to be on March 30, 2020, but the start of issuing a new ID was postponed until the summer of the same year, in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.
Compared to the old personal one, the electronic one is "smart". Both can be used for identification in the physical world. The electronic ID, however, can be used to prove identity in the online and digital space, and it is also possible for citizens to digitally sign documents using it.
To be able to use certificates with eLK, that document must be activated. The identity card issued by the MUP of Montenegro is activated by swiping through the card reader.
For activation, it is necessary to enter the data that, in the security envelope, is obtained when downloading that document - PIN/PUK.
Only the user of the eID card has - or should have - access to that data. This is, at the same time, the argument given by the MUP when they claim that they cannot activate certificates on the identity card on behalf of citizens.
The Department of Internal Affairs never commented on the fact that FZO employees activate certificates on the ID card, nor did they indicate in any way that this was disputed, if it was.
This was not done by any other state institution or government department.
The certificates found on eLK are issued and validated by the certification body. On the Government's website, on the subpage related to the MIA, there is a whole chapter "Certificates", which provides general information about certificates, procedures for suspension and revocation, as well as the circumstances in which a certificate is revoked, and what a certificate is for electronic identification, qualified certificate for qualified digital signature - two certificates located on eLK.
On the same page, it is stated that there are two certification authorities of the Ministry of Interior, MNE eID Root CA, a root certification authority intended for issuing certificates to subordinate certification authorities, and MNE eID CA1, a subordinate certification authority for issuing certificates for qualified electronic signatures and certificates for electronic identification on electronic identity cards for citizens.
Old identity cards are valid until the end of March 2025 at the latest. A fee of five euros is payable for the issuance of a new identity card. Users of the new ID who forget and/or lose their PIN/PUK data, as the MUP said earlier, must submit a request for the issuance of a new document, because the MUP of Montenegro, unlike countries like Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia... . does not unblock the card.
When the health number is no longer valid
Identity cards verified by the Health Insurance Fund are used in the health system instead of the health card.
This also means that the number of the electronic - new ID card is entered on the portal ezdravlje.me, because the health number is no longer valid for logging into the system.
Post-personalization of data is also foreseen
The Montenegrin eLK, it is stated on the Government's website (gov.me), has all the functionalities of the European citizens' card, "which makes it interoperable and suitable for use in electronic business at the national and European level".
In May 2023, the Ministry of Internal Affairs announced a public call for procurement of the maintenance system for identification documents and blank forms, when, among other things, 300 blank eLK forms were procured.
According to the specification, the purchased cards, among other things, should support post-personalization, which, according to the unofficial explanation of experts, refers to supplementing or updating the data on the chip of the identification document, after the user's basic data has already been entered during the initial creation of the document. Thus, they add, post-personalization includes the activation of digital certificates...
According to the public procurement specification, "the system for post-personalization is implemented within CDMS or is integrated with CDMS".
"CDMS ensures document data management, records of all changes and actions performed on documents, monitoring of personalization and post-personalization processes," the unofficial source explains, adding that all changes are made "securely through encrypted communication," as well as that such a "system can monitor the activation of digital certificates on the identity card, provided that it is technically implemented with appropriate functionalities and processes".
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