PSA says register for nat’l ID system to avoid inconvenience

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said Wednesday that Filipinos are not obliged to register under the recently-approved national ID system, but warned of the inconvenience in government and business transactions for those who decide not to be a part of the system.

“Hindi explicit sa law na mandatory ito. No one will be forced to enroll in the National ID System,” National Statistician Lisa Grace Bersales said in a press briefing at Malacañang.

President Rodrigo Duterte has signed into law the proposed Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) Act.

The law seeks to harmonize, integrate, and interconnect the countless and redundant government IDs by establishing a single national identification system to be known as the Philippine Identification System or PhilSys.

The ID card will contain information such as the PhilSys number, full name, facial image, sex, date of birth, blood type, and address of the cardholder.

Applying for the national ID system may not be required, but those without the card may face difficulty in transacting with the government.

“They will have difficulty in doing business with government and the other private sector eventually, because the requirement for doing business will be the national ID,” Bersales said.

Privacy issues and data security concerns were raised by those who oppose the national ID system.

Bersales noted that provisions of the law protect the individual data of cardholders.

“Very explicit in the law is only two situations to share information. One, if the citizen says, ‘Okay, PSA, you may share the information with this, this, this’,” Bersales said.

“It should be an explicit agreement by the citizen that this information from me will be shared with another institution. Or, because of health and security concerns, with the order of the court. So only if the citizen says yes, or the court says yes,” she said.

Filipinos will be compelled to register under the national ID system even if it is not mandatory.

“I believe that everyone will be compelled to be part of the PhilSys. Number one, because they will be assured that we will follow what the law says,” Bersales said. —VDS, GMA News