The Ministry of Public Security plans to have issued chip-based ID cards to 50 million citizens by July 1 this year.

The front of the chip-based ID cards

According to Senior Lieutenant Colonel To Anh Dung, deputy head of the Police Department of Administrative Management of Social Order, the ministry will direct police departments nationwide to issue chip-based ID cards to eligible citizens after the national population database system and ID card production, issuance, and management system are put in place on February 25.

Many citizens are not old enough to get an ID card while the cards of many others are still valid, Dung said in explaining why the figure is 50 million.

Under the Law on Citizen Identification in 2014, people from 14 years of age can obtain an ID card, which is then renewed when they turn 25, 40, and 60 years of age.

More than 29,000 citizens have obtained new ID cards to date, including 1,369 delegates to the 13th National Party Congress.

The national population database system is one of five databases that help form e-Government, while also serving as a basis to develop the digital economy and society and creating a premise for building other databases