New Thai Id Cards Are Not A Smart Idea

New ID cards are not a smart idea

BANGKOK: Thaksin Shinawatra is the most technologically savvy political leader Thailand has had. Two years ago he shared a dream, of the day ``when all citizens own a smart identification card''. Unless cooler heads prevail, Mr Thaksin's government intends to begin implementing that dream in the worst way in April. According to scant but troubling advance information, the world's first mandatory smart ID card is to include large amounts of personal information on the magnetic strip. There are serious privacy and security issues the government must address.

According to advance descriptions, most recently by Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, the ``smart ID cards'' could increase government efficiency, but at the cost of privacy loss. The cards are to hold digital information that includes the bearer's name and address, marital status, and identification data for taxes, social welfare and social security. According to Gen Chavalit, they will also include medical records and other census information.

The data will be shared across eight state agencies, from the Revenue Department to the police department and military. This on its own is extremely troubling. Many citizens _ probably a vast majority _ do not want to share their medical records with, say, the Agriculture Ministry. Disclosing a citizen's medical records at all is often illegal. Think of the massive discrimination against Aids victims in recent years. The advantage of having the fingerprints of every citizen over 15 placed in police records is unclear.

The government maintains, as Mr Thaksin did in his original dream of governing ``e-citizens'', that all of this will make government more efficient. Gen Chavalit sees a day when a swipe of a smart card will automate dreary tasks at any of the nation's 1,077 district offices _ although not, of course, for the dreariest task of all: replacing a lost ID card. Gen Chavalit has managed to dredge up just one advantage for citizens: They can buy lottery tickets at the 100,000 kiosks he says will spring up.

Citizens first of all need assurances that the smart cards themselves will be secure. Experts inside and outside Thailand frankly dismiss current plans as dangerous juggling with citizens' most private and basic records. The Interior Ministry's Bureau of Registration Administration foresees making and distributing cards at 1,000 national locations. That is a security nightmare, and an open invitation to identify thieves to obtain several ID cards, all of them fake. The technology used to produce the cards, the lack of oversight about who enters and who later can read the information, the lack of public participation in preparations for such a landmark policy shift _ all these have been criticised by Thai and foreign security experts.

Nowhere in the world is government piling such private information on to smart cards, let alone sharing the data across many ministries and departments. The Malaysian ``MyKad'' functions as a driver's licence and has passport information, but contains no banking, health or biometric data. Japan's optional smart ID holds nothing but photo, address and signature _ roughly the same as Thailand's current non-smart card. Finland has a similar, optional card.

The best that can be said is the government has good intentions and poor implementation. No other country moving to smart ID cards has made them mandatory. The government needs to back off this plan to issue cards in April, and start with much lower ambitions. Smart ID cards must be voluntary, perhaps for years to come, to permit project bugs to be ironed out. The government must explain the project and protect security far better that it has done.

--Bangkok Post 2004-01-20