Opening of the National Database on Population and Citizen Identification System

The ceremony was broadcast live at the main bridge in Hanoi, 63 bridge points of the Public Security of provinces and cities and bridges extending to some communes and wards in Hanoi, Hung Yen, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City.

At the Nghe An Provincial Police bridge, comrade Nguyen Duc Trung - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee attended.

Overview of the bridge at Nghe An Provincial Police. Photo: Pham Bang

The National Population Database System and the Citizen Identification Card Production, Issuance and Management System are among the six databases prioritized for deployment to create a foundation for e-Government development.

The construction of the National Population Database creates a foundation for modern state administrative management, applying information technology to handle administrative procedures for people and businesses, aiming to simplify administrative procedures, reduce citizen paperwork, reduce time and costs for handling administrative procedures, and improve the effectiveness of state management.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and leaders of the Party, State, ministries, departments and branches visit the population digital map system at the National Population Data Center. Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu

Through the organization of collecting and updating basic information of citizens, a centralized and unified population database system will be established from the central to local levels for common use to provide complete, accurate and timely population information to serve state management, planning socio-economic development policies and ensuring social security.

When officially put into operation, the above two systems will have a positive impact on many aspects of the country, helping to reduce paperwork costs, verification time and the State budget when building specialized databases and record keeping.

Preliminary calculations for the entire economy show that the National Population Database system will help reduce costs in terms of time spent preparing applications and declarations by nearly 370 billion VND; not having to present applications and declarations will save more than 4,200 billion VND/year; specialized databases will not have to enter citizen data, saving about 246 billion VND. The total cost saved is 4,864 billion VND.

General To Lam - Minister of Public Security speaks at the ceremony. Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu

For the Citizen Identification Card Production, Issuance and Management project, rolling fingerprints will be used instead of flat fingerprints; electronic chip cards will be used because of their high security and faster processing speed compared to other types, integrating many utilities during use; investing in fingerprint and facial recognition applications to serve the fight against crime and build a crime prevention library. The Ministry of Public Security strives to complete the goal of issuing 50 million cards to eligible cases before July 1, 2021.

According to the Law on Residence (amended), the role of household registration books and temporary residence books will cease when the national population databases and residence databases have completed construction and are operating smoothly, and agencies, organizations and localities have done a good job of connecting and communicating to ensure that only using personal identification numbers can identify personal information and information about citizens' place of residence.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and delegates performed the inauguration ceremony of the National Population Database system and the Citizen Identification Card Production, Issuance and Management System. Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and delegates perform the opening ceremony of the National Population Data Center. Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu

After pressing the system activation button, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Standing member of the Secretariat Vo Van Thuong witnessed leaders of ministries, sectors, localities and enterprises signing electronic commitments to join hands in connecting and sharing information databases and inaugurating the National Population Data Center.

Speaking at the ceremony, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that the launch of the above two systems demonstrates the great determination of the Government, ministries, branches and localities in building an e-Government, towards digital technology and digital economy. At the same time, it demonstrates the strong commitment of the Vietnamese Government to the international community and the people to build an action-oriented, honest and creative Government.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at the ceremony. Photo: VGP/Quang Hieu

Appreciating the spirit, responsibility and efforts of the Ministry of Public Security as well as the active coordination of relevant ministries and branches, the head of the Government said that the opening of the two new systems is only an important initial result and there is still much work to do ahead.

Therefore, the Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Public Security to continue to complete the two systems according to the set roadmap; Continue to coordinate with ministries, branches and localities to connect and share information databases to serve the socio-economic development process, better serving people and businesses.

Ministries and branches need to advise on perfecting the institutional system through implementing plans to simplify administrative procedures and citizen papers that have been approved in 19 specialized Resolutions of the Government according to the overall project to simplify administrative procedures and citizen papers and data related to population management in the period 2013 - 2020 (called Project 896). Thereby, contributing to establishing a digital citizen foundation, in the regulations of state management agencies, businesses and people.

Nghe An police carry out procedures to issue citizen identification cards to people. Photo: Document

On this occasion, the Prime Minister awarded the Government's Emulation Flag to the National Population Data Center and Certificates of Merit to 8 groups; the Minister of Public Security also awarded Certificates of Merit to many groups and individuals for their outstanding achievements in building the National Population Database project and the Production, issuance andCitizen Identification Management.