The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on Wednesday, Sept. 13, announced its target to deploy the digitalized national Identification (ID) via the e-Gov PH application before 2023 ends.

READ:

https://mb.com.ph/2023/8/24/gov-t-eyes-complete-e-phil-id-distribution-by-yearend

"Our objective is to give our fellow citizens a great Christmas gift,” DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said in a mix of English and Filipino in a public briefing via Radio Television Malacañang (RTVM).

“By the end of the year, we hope to significantly deploy the digital ID. Within a few months, we will do our best to deploy the digital ID system,” he added.

The DICT head also underscored the importance of "clean" data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) to execute the project smoothly.

"So, if the data provided to us has some issues, we might face difficulties in deploying the digital ID format because if the data is incorrect, the deployed data will also be incorrect," Uy noted.

Parallel solution

Due to the delay in the physical (plastic) distribution of the national ID, the country's ICT department received a direct order from President Marcos to make a "parallel" (digitalized) issuance of the said ID.

"As far as we're concerned, we are doing this in parallel because the public has grown in patient. I think it is four years or five years delayed," Uy said.

"We have mentioned that we will run it in parallel. While they are taking their time to produce the physical printed ID, we will also deploy our digital ID because it's faster," Uy added.

'Pressure is on us'

Since the agency's goal is to deploy the project by the year-end, Uy said that "the pressure is on us."

"We cannot delay this anymore, and somewhat - we are traveling at warp speed in all our digital deployment," he underscored.

Uy pointed out that the DICT is rushing the initiative since "it is necessary for us to plug all the holes, especially in our social amelioration packages."

"The President has assigned us a task, and since it has been a long time and we can't afford to wait any longer, we have been given the assignment to find a solution," Uy said.

"A lot of government funds are being wasted in many areas due to fake claimants and double, even triple, claimants using different identities," he added.

However, the DICT chief clarified that they will not transfer the data from the PSA to provide a digitalized form of the national ID.

They will have access to the data. Thus, the data collected by the PSA will remain with them.

"It's not a transfer. The database still remains with PSA," Uy said.

"We're just going to access the database so that it can be linked to the application for validation of the identity," he added.

Surprise

Moreover, the DICT is eyeing possible ways to access the digitized national ID even without an internet connection.

"There are different models that we are currently studying, at medyo i-sosorpresa na lang namin kayo once na ready na (there are different models we are currently studying, and we will just surprise you once it is ready)," Uy said.

"We are also studying the deployment of a digital ID that is usable in case there is no online access or what we call offline access," he stated.

The DICT chief emphasized that the country's ICT department is designing a system "so that even our fellow citizens without a cellphone or smartphone can still transact with the government using their digital ID credentials, without the need for a mobile phone."