Electronic ID distributed to 1.3m Jakartans

Andreas D. Arditya, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sat, 01/22/2011 12:42 PM | Headlines

The city government has distributed electronic identity cards (e-ID) to more than 1.3 million people in Jakarta as part of the central government’s program to establish a Single Identity Number system.

The head of the Civil Registration Agency, Franky Mangatas Panjaitan, said that the city expected by the end of this year, all 6.4 million Jakartans eligible for the ID cards would join the program.

“We have assigned a single identity number to everyone in our database. All the people need to do is apply at the local subdistrict office,” Franky told The Jakarta Post.

He said that to apply for an e-ID, one only needed to present a referral letter from neighborhood heads and the family registration card to the subdistrict office, where photos and fingerprints for the new ID would be taken.

“The process should take no more than a few minutes,” Franky said.

The central government plans to distribute electronic identity cards to every eligible Indonesian citizen by 2012. According to the civil registration law, citizens over 17 years or who are married should apply for an ID card.

Franky said that the single identity number would be a citizen’s only identification number, and would be valid for life.

The single identification number would also serve as a basis for the issuance of other documents such as driving licenses, passports, land titles and voter cards.

The Home Ministry said that the e-ID would guarantee accuracy in voters registration drives for general and local elections. The single identification number is also expected to aid the tracking of terrorists and criminals as they will no longer be able to use multiple identity cards. The central government has earmarked Rp 6 trillion for the upgrade of the citizen database for 2011 and 2012.

The government has been completing data collection required for the single identity number, known as NIK, and has also set up a computer network to support the electronic ID system. With the electronic system, every citizen is identified with their unique fingerprint, which will make the card more difficult to forge.

Franky said that Jakarta was ready with its own database. “We have set up a connection with the database server of the Home Ministry office. We are waiting for other provinces to complete the upgrade,” he said.

The idea to create national identity numbers was introduced in the mid-1990s during the last days of the New Order government but was soon abandoned after a brief trial run. Last year, the government launched a pilot project in five cities: Denpasar, Makassar, Padang, Yogyakarta and Jakarta.

The electronic identity card contains information about its holder including marital status, blood type, parents’ names, employment, physical or mental disabilities, one’s birth certificate, divorce certificates, place and date of birth, biometric fingerprints of all fingers and one photo.