Jakarta to reintroduce `national IDs' in April

Jakarta to reintroduce `national IDs' in April

Bambang Nurbianto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jakarta wants to become the first local government in the country
to start issuing national identity card (IDs) again for its
residents by launching the national ID program this April,
although nationally it will not begin until April of next year.

"We will become the first province to apply the program if we
launch it in April. We plan to launch the program in Karang Anyar
subdistrict in Central Jakarta," said the head of the Jakarta
Civil Records Office, Silviana Murni, on Tuesday.

Silviana said the program would be implemented in stages as
only 43 out of the total number of 167 subdistricts in the city
were ready to implement the program, and the printing machines
for the ID cards were only available at her office.

She added that because of the limited number of laser printers
owned by the city administration, the process of issuing the IDs
would take around six days, not one day as had been the case
previously with the old ID cards.

In 1996, Governor Surjadi Soedirdja launched the national
identity card program in Jakarta with Menteng district in Central
Jakarta being selected for a pilot scheme.

The 1996 program was part of the central government's plan to
institute a national identity card system with every citizen
being issued an individual identification number to be employed
for various administrative purposes from birth right through to
death.

But the project, including the pilot scheme in Jakarta, was
subsequently abandoned.

Recently, Minister of Home Affairs Hari Sabarno said that the
government was ready to try again.

Hari said the system would simplify the current arrangements
and the ID number would be used for all kinds of identification
documents, such as driver's licenses, passports and birth
certificates.

The number would attach to a citizen forever, and even after
he or she died, it could not be used by anyone else.

Currently the country uses more than 50 registers to identify
its citizens by their place of birth, residence and other
particulars.

The new identification numbers will begin with the codes for
the citizen's places of birth and residence in order to monitor
his or her movements.

Silviana stressed that the city administration would not ask
for any fee from citizens applying for the new IDs as a city
bylaw provides that the issuance of IDs is free for all
residents.

Among the subdistricts ready for the implementation of the
scheme are Karang Anyar and Menteng in Central Jakarta; Pondok
Kelapa and Klender in East Jakarta; Lenteng Agung and Pejaten
Barat in South Jakarta; and Pegangsaan Dua and Kelapa Gading in
North Jakarta.

Silviana said that physically the new IDs would be like
driver's licenses or credit cards, and that they would be
difficult to forge.

She expressed the hope that the home affairs ministry would
issue the serial numbers for the new IDs as soon a possible, but
even if the serial numbers were not issued by April, the city
administration would still go ahead with the plan.

"We can change the serial numbers next year," Silviana said,
adding that the citizens who would be issued with the new IDs
were those whose old-style IDs had expired. Old IDs that had not
expired would remain valid.