MitID’s predecessor, NemID, allows users who opt out of the smartphone app to use a handheld code generator or booklet to confirm their identity.

But Finans Danmark, the company that co-owns the MitID system with the Agency for Digitisation, says that MitID’s offline code generators and readers won’t be ready for these users to shop online until “early 2023,” newspaper Politiken reports.

Since NemID will officially twilight for online shopping on October 31st, that leaves people who don’t use the MitID smartphone app — which Politiken estimates to be in the thousands — without access to online shopping for months, according to the report.

“This is very regrettable. But the solution with the code displayer and code reader has unfortunately proven to need a larger amount of analysis work than we originally anticipated,” Finans Danmark’s director of digitisation Michael Busk-Jepsen told Politiken.

Advocacy groups say the issue will disproportionately affect seniors. People with impaired vision or hearing are also more likely to use code displayers or readers.

“This is very worrying for people like seniors who don’t have a smartphone and will therefore be unable to shop online for an unknown number of months,” director of charity Ældre Sagen, Bjarne Hastrup, told Politiken.

“That could be a person aged 75 without a smartphone or mobile who is physically unable to get out of their home and is therefore reliant on shopping online,” he said.

25 percent of people aged 55-74 in Denmark do not know how to download an app, according to the charity. That rises to 63 percent for 75-89 year-olds.

Hastrup called for the deadline for the complete phasing-out of NemID to be delayed.

Key online public service platforms including skat.dk, borger.dk, or sundhed.dk, along with online payments, rely on NemID and MitID for users to confirm their identity digitally.

Over 4.5 million people in Denmark have so far installed MitID, according to the digitisation agency.

By October 31st, mobile and online banking will only be accessible through MitID. NemID will be fully decommissioned on June 30th, 2023. 

Although the MitID code readers and displayers will not initially work for online shopping, they will function for public service platforms such as those listed above, and for online banking, from October 31st. The readers are currently delivered to users within 7-15 days, the Agency for Digitisation informed Politiken.

The new system has been introduced to improve security and future-proof the digital ID system, authorities have said.

READ ALSO: How non-Danish passport holders can switch from NemID to MitID