Continue to deploy 12-digit identity cards

Yesterday (June 24), the leaders of the General Department of Administrative Police for Social Order and Safety (General Department VII) - Ministry of Public Security held a press conference. The purpose of the meeting was to provide more information about the project to issue new 12-digit ID cards, citizen identification numbers (personal identification numbers) and the renaming of ID cards to citizen identification cards.

Major General Tran Van Ve, Deputy Director of General Department VII, said: When drafting the Citizen Identification Law, the Ministry of Public Security proposed to keep the name ID card because this name is used in most civil transactions, shown on documents such as red books, construction permits, household registration books, etc.

By 2020, all 9-digit ID cards will be replaced by new 12-digit ID cards.

Regarding the proposal to temporarily stop issuing 12-digit ID cards, waiting for the Law on Identification to take effect (expected in 2016) and then issue and change 9-digit ID cards to citizen ID cards at once, Major General Tran Van Ve said:

Since 2004, the Prime Minister has approved the project to produce, issue and manage ID cards. It is expected that by the end of this year, the Ministry of Public Security will issue and exchange 1 million new 12-digit ID cards.

There is already a large amount of 12-digit ID card information in the system and the government has spent nearly 500 billion VND to equip and deploy the issuance of new ID cards and "the program is effective, so why should it stop?".

In response to many opinions that not maintaining and continuing to manage the 9-digit ID system is wasteful and can easily cause social disorder, Major General Tran Van Ve analyzed: The first 3 numbers in the 9-digit series of the old ID card represent the citizen's permanent residence registration, the next 6 numbers are the order to issue to citizens when making an ID card.

For a long time, when citizens changed their permanent residence, the police had to reissue new ID numbers, leading to a situation where many people owned 3-5 ID numbers.

In densely populated areas like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City... in just a short time there will be no more numbers to issue.

Mr. Ve analyzed that the 9-digit ID card used since 1976 is outdated compared to the ID card number generation algorithm of other countries in the world.

The 12-digit ID card has been researched by the Ministry of Public Security, absorbing the experience of issuing identification codes from 30 countries, focusing on countries with similar population characteristics and population management methods to Vietnam.

According to Mr. Ve, the 12-digit structure will ensure enough numbers to be issued to all Vietnamese citizens within a period of... 500 years.

Meanwhile, Colonel Vu Xuan Dung, Director of the Department of Residence Management and National Population Data Management (General Department VII), said: Issuing new 12-digit ID cards linked to personal identification numbers is the key to reform and reduce citizen paperwork when the information technology platform in state agencies is strong.

According to nld.com.vn