The digital DNI is now as valid as the physical card since this Thursday, when the MiDNI application was officially launched a year ago to consult the digital version of the identity card. From today, public and private entities are obliged to accept it. Its launch comes as the electronic DNI turns 20, which marked the integration of the identity document into the digital transformation of the state administration.

It's been a month and a half since The ARA told the story of a man from Osona He faces a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for a scam in which he claims to be the victim: during a car sale, he sent a photo of his ID to the buyer, who disappeared shortly afterward. A few months later, he discovered he was being investigated for a scam in A Coruña that had been committed using his ID. The case is ongoing. Cases like these, which demonstrate the risks of giving your identity document to certain people, are becoming increasingly common in the courts. Just this Monday, a man from Ibiza testified at the Barcelona City of Justice for almost identical events.

It all started with the announcement of the sale of a car, a Ford Fusion, on the website Milanuncios.comThe seller was a man from Osona, and the vehicle was an old car that cost less than 3,000 euros. It quickly attracted the attention of a buyer, Sergio from Seville. "He said he was a soldier and wanted the car for his daughter," the seller explains. The soldier was in a hurry to buy it. That's why he offered him an advance payment of 300 euros, a sort of guarantee that he would keep. The buyer asked for a photo of his ID because his manager wanted to prepare a reservation contract, and that way he could also begin processing the change of name on the vehicle. "He asked me to take the photo more than once so his face could be clearly seen. I thought it was strange," he says. After sending the photo of his ID, the buyer disappeared. It was the summer of 2021, and he didn't give it any more thought, and years passed. Specifically, it took three years until the Osona salesman received, in 2023, a summons to appear as a suspect in a Coruña court for defrauding a woman of 500 euros. How? With the sale of a vehicle. The Osona man claims that his ID was used to commit this scam, but, for now, the judicial investigation has been successful, to the point that the Prosecutor's Office has requested two and a half years in prison for him. The suspect maintains that he is not the perpetrator of the scam, but another victim. "I am not guilty, I am the victim, and I am caught with nothing. I feel powerless," he says.

Now that the summer holidays are approaching, the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) warns: it is prohibited to request a copy of your ID card when staying at a hotel. The agency has issued a information note Remember that, although Royal Decree 933/2021 establishes the obligation of the owner of the hostel or hotel to collect certain data from the people who use their services, this request for information does not authorize requesting a copy of the client's identity document, since this "would violate the principle of data minimization and would constitute excessive processing."

The Spanish government has begun rolling out the new digital ID this week, a document that will allow citizens to authenticate themselves with their mobile phones in numerous everyday situations. This is a long-awaited development for those of us who carry our lives on our pocket-sized devices, but the solution adopted has several weaknesses and is part of a still highly fragmented and inconsistent national ecosystem of digital identities.

The digital DNI will begin to take shape this Wednesday. The Official State Gazette (BOE) will publish the decree regulating its "issuance, management, and development process" so that it can be installed on mobile phones. The launch of the digital ID card was approved this Tuesday by the Council of Ministers and will coexist with the physical DNI, although the Spanish government's intention is to extend its use "universally," according to sources from the National Police.

When Rai, an Italian citizen settled in Barcelona, began procedures to renew his passport, it was still seven months away from expiring. He has lived in Barcelona for over ten years and knows that the procedures at the Italian consulate in Barcelona are always slow. "I thought it was better to be cautious and do it with plenty of time, because I needed my passport for some business trips and I didn't want to take any risks," he explains. Despite this, he was unable to travel: the passport did not arrive in time. "Not only did I miss the trip, but last week I was forced to go to my home town in Italy, using my ID card, which has not expired, to renew my passport there". The slowness of the Italian consulate in Barcelona has cost him dear: €230 for the trip home, which he obviously paid out of his own pocket, and the trip he missed because his passport did not arrive on time. But he is far from being alone.

The police are have been carrying out a huge operation since early this morning against a network implicated in forgery of driving licenses, centred around Girona. The organisation would distributed up to a thousand fake licenses throughout the state. The operation is being carried out in 25 state districts and is expected to end with about a thousand arrests in the coming days, most of them customers who bought these fake driving licenses.