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Government Data Management, Government Security

China keeps social security and ID cards separate

By Jianggan Li | 6 September 2011

China’s new five year plan for national economy and social development has put a target of issuing 800 standardised social security cards within five years, which will cover 60 per cent of the population.

Currently, 170 local governments have started issuing standardised social security cards approved by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security to more than 145 million people. Deputy Ministry Hu Xiaoyi says the pace is picking up and the government expects 190 million citizens to be issued with such cards by end of this year. The cards, which are IC-based, will have capabilities for financial transactions, according to the Ministry. The decision to embed financial capabilities onto social security cards was made jointly by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and People’s Bank of China (PBC), the country’s central bank. “Financial services are a very important part of public services, and social security concerns every citizen of our country,” says Li Dongrong, Assistant Governor of PBC. “We have been working with the Ministry and commercial banks since 2009 on how to load financial capabilities onto social security cards.” Li reveals that PBC has requested commercial banks to migrate to IC cards and achieve service delivery through these smart cards for at least two to three public service areas over the next five years. He says the ability to use social security card across the nation for different purposes will greatly save resources and avoid wastage. PBC will work with commercial banks to complete the management system and monitor the smooth issuance of the cards. By end of last year, 1.26 billion people had enrolled in different kinds of state-run medical insurance schemes. Among these, 430 million were urban residents, who did more than 940 million transactions, each of which involving more than one items.

To simplify and speed up this process, the social security card will have its primary function in the area of real-time account-settlement for medical expenses. Pension payment will also be integrated – currently there are 160 million pensioners in China, generating billions of transactions each year.

The cards will also be used for more than two million unemployment insurance beneficiaries, two million child-birth benefits receivers and 1.5 million who receive payment for work-related injury.

Hu says that it is ‘unlikely’ that social security cards will merge with ID cards. “ID cards are used primarily for social management, and will unlikely be able to provide a wide range of social services,” he explains. “The information stored in ID cards, including name, gender, nationality, date of birth, photo, address of residence, ID number validity and issuing authority, are static and they are unlikely able to handle large amount of transactions.”

Besides, national legislations only mandate citizens above 16 years’ age to have ID cards, while those below 16 would need social security transactions as well, according to Hu.

However, Hu reveals that while building and maintaining the system, the Ministry talks a lot with Public Security Ministry, which oversees the ID card system. In fact, ID numbers are used as social security card numbers.

Li adds that credit services will not be enabled for social security cards, to comply with current legislation and minimise potential security problems.

Citizens can enquire their social security information at more than 7000 government social security offices across the country – and the Ministry plans to enable such enquiry services at more than 190,000 service stations across the country.

Although each card costs around RMB20 – 25 (US$3.1 – 3.9) to produce and issue, Hu urges citizens who have received their social security cards to take good care of them and make sure they are secured.

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