Indonesia: ID, E-ID and Ministerial Competence

E-ID: Ambitious but ambiguous mega project (The Jakarta Post)

A 16-digit NIK serial number is used to identify one person among 237 million Indonesian citizens. It is a digital identification number for every resident that can facilitate services related to immigration, taxation, banking, insurance, population census for elections and ID cards. In other words, NIK is a basic citizen administration database used in several administration documents.

Regarding the main advantage of the program, the ministry argues that the electronic card, which is embedded with an eye biometric system and fingerprint detection will guarantee that every Indonesian citizen will hold only one ID card, because no one can share similar irises or fingerprints. It is true that every fingerprint and iris is unique, but it does not always mean that double citizen cards cannot happen.

Nevertheless, there is always a chance for a person to hold double or triple ID cards because the NIK system in the country remains in a mess.

The previous post deals with acceptable rates of inaccuracy in the determination of an individual's identity in a biometric national ID program. The above article invites questions about how much government inefficiency can be tolerated in the data collection.