PESEL

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PESEL (Polish Powszechny Elektroniczny System Ewidencji LudnoĊ›ci) 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 that's 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

if the sum has zero as the last digit, it could be a valid PESEL. This system works reliably well for catching a one-digit mistakes and digit swaps.

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