Philippines aims for 92M biometric PhilID target in 2022

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) says it is looking forward to swelling the number to 92 million registrants for the Philippine Identification System (PhilSys) national ID program by the end of 2022, writes Business Mirror.

The report quotes the PSA National Statistician Claire Dennis S. Mapa as saying the projected figure includes the 31.3 million registrants who are due to collect their PhilID cards in the course of the year.

According to the official, almost 55 million people have so far completed the first and second phases of registration for the national ID scheme as of February 4, with 7.3 million of them having opened bank accounts thanks to a financial inclusion partnership with the Land Bank of the Philippines.

“We are targeting 92 million by the end of 2022 for demographic and biometric registration. We are about 55 million as of February 4…For card distribution, we are targeting 31.3 million physical cards delivered. We will also introduce mobile ID by the end of Q1 [first quarter] 2022 to increase registrants with access to National ID [physical or mobile],” Mapa told Business Mirror.

The PSA said it also surpassed it target last year by registering 50,014,000 Filipinos, as of December 11, per their statistics.

Ground being prepared for PhilSys implementation

As rollout of the PhilID advances, the Presidency (Malacañang Palace) has called on public entities including government agencies, offices, and local government units (LGUs) to ready themselves for full implementation of the PhilSys and its eventual integration into government processes, databases and systems for seamless access to public services, according to the Philippine News Agency (PNA).

The PNA cites a memorandum circular issued by Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea as signaling the urgency with which measures have to be taken to make sure the PhilSys and its major components are fully integrated into the functioning of all government agencies to make interoperability and transactions with them easier and less costly.

A section of the memorandum quoted by the PNA reads: “All government agencies, instrumentalities, departments, bureaus, offices, LGUs, GOCCs (government-owned or controlled corporations), GFIs (government financial institutions), state universities and colleges, as well as other chartered institutions (hereafter ‘Covered Agencies’) are hereby directed to incorporate and integrate in their respective processes, databases, identification systems and services, the PSN [PhilSys Number] and PhillD [Philippine Identification] of registered individuals, as well as the other components and features of the PhilSys. It is understood, however, that the PhilSys integration must not grant Covered Agencies access, in any form, to the PhilSys Registry.”

The memo also directs that appropriate steps have to be taken in the planning and integration process of the PhilSys so that the PhilSys Registry and other important data are protected from unauthorized access.

Article Topics

biometric enrollment  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital ID cards  |  financial services  |  government services  |  identity management  |  national ID  |  PhilID  |  Philippines