Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what progress her Department has made on supporting the use of the EU Settled Status app by Polish workers.

The ‘EU Exit: ID Document Check’ app allows applicants to prove their identity remotely using their biometric identity document and a smartphone device. Millions of applicants have used the app to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme over the last two years, including over 900,000 Polish nationals.

In early 2021 we were made aware the new Polish passport, issued from late 2020 onwards, contained an advanced security protocol, Password Authenticated Connection Establishment (PACE), which was not supported by our app. We have now made the necessary changes to our app to support this new security protocol and are now in the final stages of testing with a view to releasing the upgrade by the end of May.

The vast majority of Polish passports are not affected by this issue and thou-sands of Polish nationals are still using the app every week to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme. Any applicant who is unable to use the app to verify their identity can still apply to the scheme by completing an online application and sending their identity document through the post.