The Digital Mobile Key (DMK) is the National eID solution which allows citizens to electronically authenticate themselves in public and private companies websites and access digital services through their smartphones, tablets or laptops, while also enabling qualified electronic signatures.
When authenticating in a website, the citizen should insert a numeric PIN (defined by him/her) and immediately receives a one-time temporary code number in his/her mobile phone (SMS text message), email or twitter account; there’s also a mobile app that allows the citizen to receive the code through a push notification. With this code, the citizen can authenticate and access his/her digital services of choice anywhere and at any time, in a secure, free-of-charge and comfortable way.
Before the DMK introduction, citizens had to authenticate with different user+password or rely on the Citizen Card, which implies the use of a card reader that most Portuguese don’t have. With the DMK, the card reader is no longer needed and the citizen only has to memorize a single PIN to access hundreds of digital services.
Besides authenticating, the DMK allows citizens to digitally sign documents with the added value of the Professional Attributes Certification System – meaning that lawyers, engineers, doctors or Public Officials, among other professionals, are able to sign both as citizens and as certified professionals.
The DMK can be requested online, with a Citizen Card and a smartcard reader, or face-to-face in a Citizen Shop or Citizen Spot, and the registration process is available to all citizens – foreigners can require a DMK with their Passport.
The DMK was implemented and is coordinated by the Administrative Modernization Agency, which acts under the superintendence and tutelage of the Secretary of State Assistant and of Administrative Modernization by delegation of the Minister of the Presidency and of Administrative Modernization. The Agency partnered with several important national entities such as the Social Security, the Shared Services of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice, among others, that made the DMK available in their websites.
It reached 300 000 registered users by JAN19 and the objective is now to extend its scope to the private sector. EDP (the main energy supplier in Portugal), Millenium (one of Portugal’s major banks) and MEO (one of the biggest telecom companies) have already adopted the DMK as their default authentication mechanism.
