PESEL

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PESEL (Polish Powszechny Elektroniczny System Ewidencji Ludności, Universal Electronic System for Registration of the Population) is the national identification number used in Poland since 1979.

The PESEL number is mandatory for all permanent residents of Poland and for temporary residents living in Poland for over 2 months.

It has the form YYMMDDZZZXQ, where YYMMDD is the date of birth (with century encoded in month field), ZZZ is the personal identification number, X denotes sex (even for females, odd for males) and Q is a control digit, which is used to verify if whether given PESEL can be correct or not. If the PESEL is ABCDEF GHIJK, then one can check if it is a possible valid number by computing

A*1 + B*3 + C*7 + D*9 + E*1 + F*3 + G*7 + H*9 + I*1 + J*3 + K*1

The result of this expression should have zero as the final digit. This system works reliably well for catching one-digit mistakes and digit swaps.

Even though the system has been operating for 28 years it has many faults that appeared even 16 years ago and haven't been fixed since then. The most dangerous one is system deleting a person from the system which happens not only when person dies but can also happen when the person is still living therefor denying that person their pension.

[edit] Birthdates

The PESEL system has been designed for five centuries. To distinguish people born in different centuies, numbers are added to MM fields:

• for birthdates between 1900 and 1999 - no change to MM field is made
• for other birthdates:
  • 1800-1899 - month field is increased by 80
  • 2000-2099 - 20
  • 2100-2199 - 40
  • 2200-2299 - 60

For example, person born December 24th, 2002 would have PESEL number starting with 023224.