You will find structured answers to the most frequently asked questions about the identity verification procedures, the POSTIDENT portal and data transmission on this page. Click through the questions to see details about our services.
Yes, as a business customer, you define in your contract the retention period of the identification data for POSTIDENT by video chat, POSTIDENT by photo, POSTIDENT by eID function, POSTIDENT by post office and POSTIDENT by AutoID. The retention period is a maximum of 3 months.
Data protection is of the utmost concern. This is why DP AG as a data processor concludes a data processing contract with you as part of the POSTIDENT contract, which is directly included in the contract as an attachment.
POSTIDENT by post office, POSTIDENT by video chat, POSTIDENT by online ID function, POSTIDENT by AutoID, POSTIDENT delivery and POSTIDENT E-Signing:
A monthly invoice will be issued. The basic services and sales tax are shown separately in the invoices.
POSTIDENT by post office:
Authorized ID documents are valid German ID cards, official foreign identity cards that are equivalent to a German ID card, and passports, provided that the documents contain a photograph of the holder and are accepted by Deutsche Post as identification. Please note that not all available ID documents can be accepted due to the required security features for documents. If private customers have questions about the identification process with ID documents that are not accepted, they will be referred to you as the party commissioning the identity check.
An authorized ID document must contain the information for the mandatory fields on the POSTIDENT form and be legible (i.e. at minimum in Latin characters and Arabic numerals) and decipherable for the vicarious agents of Deutsche Post.
If, in exceptional cases, information about the address is not provided in the ID document, the vicarious agents of Deutsche Post will request this from the person to be identified during the identity verification process in the post office.
POSTIDENT by video chat:
Authorized ID documents are valid German ID cards, official foreign identity cards that are equivalent to a German identity card, and passports, provided that the documents contain visual (holographic) security features and a photograph and are accepted by Deutsche Post as identification.
Please note that not all available ID documents can be accepted due to the required security features for documents. If private customers have questions about the identification process with ID documents that are not accepted, they will be referred to you as the party commissioning the identity check.
An authorized ID document must contain the information for the mandatory fields on the POSTIDENT form, and be legible (i.e., at minimum be in Latin characters and Arabic numerals) and decipherable for the vicarious agents of Deutsche Post.
POSTIDENT by online identification function:
Authorized documents for identification using the eID function are the new German ID card, an electronic residence permit or the eID card for citizens of the EU and EEA with the eID function activated. For identification via desktop, an ID-capable card reader and the AusweisApp2 are required. The POSTIDENT app is required for legitimation via Android or iOS smartphone (with activated NFC). In both cases - via desktop or smartphone - the online ID function must be activated, and the personal 6-digit PIN must be known.
Further information on the online ID function of the new ID card can be found here.
POSTIDENT by AutoID
The information required for the purpose of identification must be present and legible on an acceptable identification document. Valid identification documents in the AutoID process are the following documents: Valid ID cards and passports for the countries Germany, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Italy, Kosovo, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, and Hungary, as well as passports for the countries Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania as well as German residence permits (only ID card substitute). Requirement is, that these documents contain a photograph and are accepted by Deutsche Post for the identification.
If the ID document is not accepted by AutoID at POSTIDENT, the private customer is offered an alternative procedure via the POSTIDENT portal.
POSTIDENT delivery
Valid German identity cards, foreign official identity cards corresponding to the German identity card and passports are considered acceptable identification documents, provided these documents are accepted by Deutsche Post for identification purposes. Please understand that due to the requirements for security features of the documents, not all available ID documents can be supported.
If, contrary to expectations, any of the identification data is incorrect, please submit a complaint in accordance with our GT&C.
We kindly ask you to display each disputed identification in an e-mail as follows:
The format for reporting errors in cases when results are provided in digital form only is as follows:
E-mail in pure text format.
Message contents should each be placed in their own row:
With POSTIDENT by video chat, if a person cannot be identified due to technical problems or other circumstances, the person to be identified will receive an e-mail instructing them to continue with the POSTIDENT by video chat procedure at a later time, or to select a different POSTIDENT procedure for identification (via post office, or eID function).
If it is not possible to identify a person at POSTIDENT using the online ID function due to technical problems or other circumstances, the person to be identified can choose an alternative method and continue the identification.
If it is not possible to identify a person at POSTIDENT using AutoID due to technical problems or other circumstances, the person to be identified will receive an email instructing them to resume the POSTIDENT procedure using AutoID at a later date or another POSTIDENT procedure to choose for identification (e.g., by post office).
With POSTIDENT by post office:
The person to be identified receives a POSTIDENT coupon, which asks them to identify themselves in a Deutsche Post post office. As soon as the identity check is complete, the result of the identification is transmitted to you as the business customer on the same day. However, neither you nor Deutsche Post have any influence over when the person to be identified goes to the post office with the POSTIDENT coupon to identify themselves.
You will be provided with the results of the identification digitally e.g. in the Postident information portal after the identity verification procedure in the post office is completed.
With POSTIDENT by video chat:
Identifying a person via video chat takes approximately 5 minutes.
With POSTIDENT using the online ID function:
Identification takes about 2-3 minutes.
With POSTIDENT by AutoID:
As a rule, the test steps in the app take less than 3 minutes for the users. The results are then delivered digitally (subject to a quality check by service agents)
POSTIDENT delivery:
The identification of the recipient by the deliverer or at the post office usually takes less than 2 minutes.
With POSTIDENT E-Signing:
The upstream identification by video chat takes about 5 minutes (if necessary). The length of time for reading and checking is at the discretion of the contract signatory (validity can be configured). The signature process itself takes a few minutes.
As our business customer, you can download the identification data in the contractually agreed cycle from the automated interface following identity verification.
Currently, POSTIDENT is offered only in Germany. However, foreign companies and institutions can also use POSTIDENT for identity verification in the German market. Identity verification by POSTIDENT overseas is not possible.
With the digital identification procedures such as POSTIDENT by video chat, POSTIDENT by eID function or POSTIDENT by AutoID, foreign persons can identify themselves at any time and any place if the requirements necessary for the identification are met.
POSTIDENT by post office without a digital interface:
With the product variant POSTIDENT by post office, the customer data necessary for identification can be taken from the POSTIDENT coupon. The POSTIDENT coupon has to be created by you as our business customer and given to the person to be identified. Either you provide the POSTIDENT coupon for download on your website, or you send it by mail to the person to be identified.
POSTIDENT by post office with a digital interface:
If you are connected digitally to the POSTIDENT portal, your customers are forwarded from your website to the POSTIDENT portal for the identity verification process. Here, your customer can download the POSTIDENT coupon in the form of a PDF file.
Alternatively, a digital interface is available without forwarding your customers to the POSTIDENT portal. Once connected to the automatic data interface, you can independently generate individualized POSTIDENT coupons to create unique cases.
Deutsche Post is constantly working on increasing process security to prevent misuse by means of documentary fraud, in particular account use under false identities. The legal requirements for combating money laundering and terrorist financing are implemented as part of this procedure.
If the recipient of the mailing could not be met in person, the mailing will be forwarded to a post office and kept there for pick up by the recipient for 7 working days.
If the mailing is not picked up, acceptance or identification was refused or no successful identification could be made, the mailing will be returned to the sender.
In the POSTIDENT portal, end customers can choose between the online procedures and identity verification in a post office:
No, you can only receive the data for all procedures, including the online procedures, in the same intervals and at the same time. However, if you want to change the cycle, you can do so when commissioning the online procedures. This will then apply to all data deliveries.
Channels for electronic data provision
When data is provided electronically, you have three options regarding the channel or channels through which the data is provided to you:
Access to the identification data
As soon as the contract for using POSTIDENT is legally valid, the users you named are given access to the identification data. Each user, depending on the method of data provision that was selected, receives the following information as a separate registered letter, or optionally in separate E-Postbrief items:
Archive file
POSTIDENT information portal/automated data interface
The identification data that was collected as part of the post office data provision is usually provided on the day of identification, from Monday to Saturday. The business customer can access the identification data via the Postident information portal at any time, however, the access via the automated data interface is restricted to the contractually agreed cycles.
The data is provided as a ZIP archive in the POSTIDENT system and made available for download in the POSTIDENT information portal. WinZip and 7-Zip are supported. The ZIP file is encrypted with AES 256 and secured with a password.
You, or the portal users named by you, are given access only to the identification data for the correspondingly activated billing numbers that were contractually agreed with you.
Identification records can be called up repeatedly.
Within the POSTIDENT information portal, only selected identification data can be viewed. This means that the search result provides only an overview of the identifications performed. However, you or the POSTIDENT information portal users can use the download function to display the full records and images (if available).
The archive will always include all the identification data that was not yet provided since the last upload. The identification data and, where applicable, associated images are provided for collection by the business customer. The records in the archive files provided are designed so that the data from all Postident procedures can be transmitted in a standardized format. The archive file contains one or more files and is zipped.
If you are interested in concluding a contract, please contact your customer adviser.
With its eIDAS Regulation, the European Union has defined a Europe-wide valid legal framework for digital signatures. If a digital signature meets the Regulation’s requirements, it is to be considered as having the same legal force as a handwritten signature. To ensure that the digital signatures of the POSTIDENT E-Signing procedure are eIDAS-compliant, Deutsche Post has been verified in accordance with the eIDAS Regulation as a qualified trust service provider.
Yes. With a single signature process, up to five documents can be digitally signed simultaneously. This means that supporting documents such as GT&C do not have to be integrated into the contract document.
A digital signature can be verified by means of commonly used PDF reader programs. To do this, in Adobe Reader for example, click the "Signatures" properties window to display the certificate chain and the integrity of the signature.
Yes. If you prefer, in place of the handwritten signature, a stamp can be added that indicates the name of the signatory and the time of the signature.
Our technical support is available if you have any problems. You can contact them by telephone and e-mail from Monday to Friday between the hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
A digital signature is essentially a certificate that is attached to the PDF file to be signed. Through the identification, the user authorizes this certificate and approves its attachment to the PDF file by means of a mobile TAN process. Once it has been attached, the certificate documents the integrity of the document, the name of the signatory and the time of the signature.
At the start of the signature process, you send us the documents to be signed as well as the relevant customer data via the Signing REST interface. Throughout the entire process, you can use this interface to display the current status. The unique hash value of the document is determined for the signature, which is subsequently encrypted and appended to the document with the help of the private key (= signature key) from the certificate that is issued. The public key (= signature verification key) that is necessary for encryption is provided in a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI). To verify the signature, the hash value of the document is generated again and compared with the encrypted hash value from the signature. If both hash values match, the authenticity of the signature is ensured and the document has not been changed.
Yes. eIDAS-compliance means that the digital signature is equivalent to a handwritten signature.
According to the eIDAS regulation, a customer must be identified using a suitable method before the digital signature is given, so that the authenticity of the signature is ensured. The POSTIDENT procedure through video chat offers a simple solution for eIDAS-compliant identification that is available to a wide audience.
Alternatively, the business customer can transfer existing identities to Deutsche Post after the customer has given their consent.
Yes. After they have been signed, the documents are provided to the private customer for downloading. The customer is also sent a link via e-mail. After re-authentication via mobile TAN, this can be used to download the documents for up to 150 days. Both this period and the frequency in which the documents may be downloaded again are limited.
