Indonesia Moves Towards Single National Identity Anchored by NIK

The National Identity Number (NIK) and Digital Population Identity (IKD) are no longer merely markers of citizenship. These two instruments have now become the foundation for the government to build public services that are interconnected.

NIK and IKD are also useful for ensuring that social assistance (bansos) genuinely reaches those entitled to it. Handayani Ningrum, Director of National Population Data Integration (IDKN) at the Directorate General of Population and Civil Registration (Dukcapil) at the Ministry of Home Affairs, explained that governmental digital transformation would be impossible without a trustworthy digital identity.

For this reason, she continued, NIK as the single national identity and IKD as the digital identity have been positioned as the two main pillars of Indonesia’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) development. “We are building the DPI foundation to realise government services that are integrated, inclusive, secure and sustainable,” she said in a press release in Jakarta on Wednesday (5 August 2026).

According to Ningrum, DPI is supported by three pillars: digital identity, data exchange, and digital payments. Within this scheme, she continued, the Directorate General of Dukcapil holds a dual role as the provider of the single national identity as well as the operator of IKD and the manager of population data that safeguards the security, privacy and digital trust of the public.

Ningrum noted that the journey of digitising Indonesia’s population administration has brought the country from a manual system towards a Single National Identity underpinned by NIK, biometric data, and IKD. To date, electronic ID card recording has reached 97.28 per cent of the total population required to hold an ID card, equivalent to around 208.5 million people. Meanwhile, IKD users have surpassed 20.59 million.