Discussion on the draft Law on Citizen Identification: Still many concerns

Due to its close connection with administrative reform and civil status, the draft Law on Citizen Identification attracted special attention from National Assembly deputies during the plenary session in the hall on June 19.

The issue of switching from 9-digit ID cards to 12-digit ones, then changing them to citizen ID cards, has the overall socio-economic efficiency been taken into account when implementing it, and will it bring about the widespread effect as expected by the Drafting Committee? This is an issue that has received many concerns and requests for clarification.

Changing the identity card to a citizen identification card may cause difficulties for people's civil transactions. Photo: Nhu Y

The risk of waste is evident.

While the National Assembly is giving opinions on the draft Law on Citizen Identification with the aim of changing the identity card into a citizen identification card in the near future, many localities have already issued a new 12-digit identity card model. Therefore, according to Deputy Pham Trong Nhan (Binh Duong Delegation), the current concern of public opinion is whether this is wasteful or not? There are many opposing views, some say that this is just a pilot project, but according to Deputy Pham Trong Nhan, in the context of the country's economic difficulties, just replacing the 9-digit identity card with a 12-digit identity card is very costly in terms of storage resources, slowing down the speed of data transmission and processing. Deputy Pham Trong Nhan analyzed: "With the 9 numbers of the popular ID cards currently in use, there will be nearly 1 billion numbers. Meanwhile, according to the Government's proposal, more than 68 million numbers have been issued. Based on the current population growth rate, this number pool can be used for at least 400 years. Discarding 68 million old ID cards with established relationships that spread throughout society is something that needs to be considered. At this time, it is necessary to recalculate, stop issuing 12-digit ID cards and proceed to consolidate the current 9-digit ID card pool nationwide."

Concerned about the additional expense of changing from identity cards to citizen identification cards when the Citizen Identification Law takes effect, Deputy Nguyen Ngoc Phuong (Quang Binh Delegation) expressed his opinion that, if carefully examined, it can be seen that the nature of identity cards and citizen identification cards has not changed. Therefore, only one type of document should be used to prove each person's identity, replacing household registration, passport, other documents such as birth certificates, blood types, tax codes, etc. Also expressing his disagreement with the issuance of identity cards to citizens under 15 years old, Deputy Nguyen Ngoc Phuong analyzed: "The bill itself has a contradiction. Article 3 stipulates that citizen identification is basic information about the origin and identification characteristics of citizens according to the provisions of this law to identify a specific person and distinguish one person from another. Meanwhile, Article 18 stipulates that for people under 15 years old, photos, fingerprints and identification characteristics of that person must not be printed on the card."

Participating in the discussion, Deputy Dang Thi Kim Lien (Yen Bai Delegation) also said that issuing ID cards to citizens at birth is an additional procedure for citizens, creating unreasonable costs. Because children have unstable identification characteristics, are not yet criminally responsible, and in civil transactions, they also need their parents or guardians to act as representatives.

Information integration - an urgent requirement

According to Deputy Truong Trong Nghia (Ho Chi Minh City Delegation), another issue that needs to be dissected and clarified is the need to integrate information to unify identity and simplify administrative procedures in this field. People hope that when the Citizen Identification Law comes into effect, they will no longer have to carry too many identification documents in their pockets to carry out transactions. This is something that the Drafting Committee, the Ministry of Public Security, cannot ignore. But up to now, the answer to the question of how the citizen identification card, when established, will solve the problems of integrating unified information, how long it will take to complete, how to synchronize and merge with other identification documents, and how much it will cost is still not available. In particular, the political, economic and social effectiveness is even more unclear. Therefore, National Assembly deputies must be exposed to the implementation plan, including necessary information and parameters, before passing this law.

Regarding the citizen database, Deputy Do Trong Nien (Binh Thuan Delegation) said that the Drafting Committee's proposal that the national population database be established from two sources, including the national population database and citizens directly declaring when applying for a citizen identification card, is unscientific. Such preparation is not really ready, making it difficult to determine the exact source as a basis and resolve conflicts when the information is not the same. The best solution, according to Deputy Do Trong Nien, is to further accelerate the process of building and completing the national population database before promulgating the law.

Agreeing with this view, some delegates suggested that it is necessary to change the previous manual updating model and method; only build a single national database system on identity and civil status, assign state management responsibility to a single ministry to update and synchronize civil status data into the national database system on population. In this system, each citizen will have a code to identify the identity data and civil status events of that citizen throughout his/her life... Identity and civil status cannot be separated, so the Law on Citizen Identification should be incorporated into a chapter of the Law on Civil Status to ensure consistency. On the other hand, the demand for issuing citizen identification cards is very large, from now on, the Ministry of Public Security should also have a direction to decentralize the authority to issue cards to district-level police as soon as human resources are qualified.

Delegate Nguyen Duc Chung (Hanoi Delegation):Citizen identification card or identity card are both issues of public concern, although their functions are the same. Through the aspirations of officers and soldiers in the police force and voters' opinions, it is proposed that this law should not use the term citizen identification card but use the term identity card. If it is changed to citizen identification card, the entire software system related to identity cards of credit banks must change. All administrative transactions related to identity cards must also have their forms and management software modified. Regarding the issue of issuing identity cards to newborn children, I have this information for the National Assembly deputies to consider. Children from birth to adulthood must use a copy of their birth certificate many times. For example, vaccinations, school attendance, passports, medical examinations, air travel, etc. If we calculate the cost of making an ID card for children at once, it only costs 40 thousand VND instead of having to copy birth certificates, then the economic efficiency and administrative procedure reform are much better.

According to Hanoi Moi Online