Planned ID card changes are utterly impractical

In August, when Premier Prayut Chan-o-cha first floated the idea of adding citizens’ occupations and income to the data displayed on national identity cards, it went largely unnoticed. Yet when he repeated the proposal that’s now become a plan during his latest televised address on Saturday morning, it met with strong criticism from citizens and rights watchdogs. 

In Prayut’s eyes, the change – to be implemented in 2017 – will let the government determine who should pay tax and how much and who is entitled to financial assistance. 

To those raising the alarm, it is a further clamp on basic freedoms, of the sort that have been occurring since this government came to power following the May 2014 coup. 

Tracking citizens by occupation and income is neither necessary nor practical. More significantly, it would violate their right to privacy. 

All citizens between ages seven and 70 are required to carry an ID card bearing their name, address, birth date and photograph. It must also show their religion, a stipulation that critics have often said can result in prejudicial treatment. 

Since failure to produce a national identity card can result in denial of state services, it is the primary means to verify one’s entitlement to those services. In such circumstances, providing one’s name and a photograph ought to be sufficient, and often are. The address and choice of religion are superfluous information, and sharing them invites potentially harmful intrusion on one’s right to privacy.   

The authorities face a major problem stemming from outdated and inaccurate information listed on the cards. It’s been calculated that millions of addresses appearing on these documents are false or out of date. Although the law requires citizens to update their cards if they move, few bother to do so.

Prayut’s plan to have occupation and level of income added to the ID card strikes us as even more impractical. The card remains valid for only eight years, during which time most people’s income and occupation can change frequently. People might change jobs several times over a period of eight years, and their income will likely follow suit.

In reality, the government can never hope to maintain an accurate databank on citizens’ occupations and income via this method. Though there is scope for lying when applying for the card, most citizens give honest information. How can they possibly know, however, whether they’ll have the same job and salary by the time the card expires?

A good swath of the populace will of course be more diligent about updating the information held by the authorities and report their changing personal circumstances. But the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly enough that the statistical picture will always remain blurred and incomplete.

Information on personal finances surrendered to the authorities for imprinting on the ID card will never be accurate enough to calculate an individual’s tax rates or level of government assistance.  

Premier Prayut would be better focusing on reforms and development that foster genuine social reconciliation and economic progress, rather than cooking up impractical and half-baked schemes for the identity card.