A

mid the ongoing nationwide campaign for citizens to apply for an electronic ID card, the National Police Criminal Investigation Division has launched its own fingerprint-based citizen identification system aimed at improving its services.

National Police detective chief Comr. Gen. Sutarman said on Tuesday that under the Indonesia Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (Inafis), each Indonesian citizen would be provided with a card containing “thorough information pertaining to himself or herself”.

“The Inafis card will contain information regarding the cardholder’s name, photograph, place and date of birth, fingerprint, driving license, vehicle documents and license plate numbers,” Sutarman told reporters.

He was speaking at the system’s inauguration ceremony at one of its customer service centers at the South Jakarta police office.

According to him, the card will also contain information about its holder’s bank account, certificates of house ownership and criminal records.

“The data will be saved on a centralized computer server and will be combined with information gathered in the development of the government’s e-ID system,” Sutarman said.

“This way, a citizen can take care of many things using only one card, which will hopefully cut down on bureaucratic red tape and reduce opportunities for bribery.”

In contrast, an e-ID card in the government-sponsored program will contain information on the cardholder’s marital status, blood type, parents’ names, employment, physical or mental disabilities, birth certificate, divorce certificate, place and date of birth, biometric fingerprints and a photo.

The head of the police’s Inafis center, Brig. Gen. Bekti Suhartono, said that Inafis will not overlap with government’s e-ID program, as the system was geared toward helping the police deal with criminal cases.

“A simple example would be when dealing with a person who has just violated a traffic rule. [With Inafis in place], the person doesn’t have to give his fine to the court. The state can automatically withdraw the amount from his or her bank account,” Bekti explained.

According to Sutarman, the Inafis could also potentially ease the government’s demographic data collection in preparing for elections. “With the Inafis, there will be no double entries in the voters’ list.”

The National Police has inaugurated 41 Inafis centers so far, all of which are located in Java.

In Jakarta alone, there are several spots where residents can apply for the identification card, including one at South Jakarta police office and another at the police’s integrated service office (Samsat) in Daan Mogot, West Jakarta.

Sutarman said that applying for the card would not be compulsory. “However, we do encourage all citizens to apply for the card, so that if they become victims of a crime, we can identify them and process their case quickly.”

According to Bekti, there are no special requirements for residents who wish to apply for an Inafis card. “They can come to the Inafis centers and fill out a form. Police officers will then take their fingerprints. The entire process will only take 10 minutes.”

Bekti added that the South Jakarta police office will not charge the first 5,000 applicants for the card. “After 5,000 applicants, we will charge Rp 35,000 (US$3.82) per application.”