Sudjono, head of East Java’s Communications and Information Technology Office, said the provincial government aimed to create a paperless administration starting in 2012 by cutting all budget allocations for paper and only storing and transmitting data and correspondence electronically.
“The hope is that by doing this, performance will become more effective since correspondence will no longer involve paper documents,” he said.
First, it has been reported that the International Civil Aviation Organization has mandated the use of e-passports by 2015. The ICAO has made no such stipulations. What members of ICAO (of which Indonesia is one) have committed to is that by April 2015, all countries must be issuing Machine Readable Passports. This means the data page in all passports must contain a machine-readable zone that can be scanned electronically. Those countries that, for example, do not have passport scanners by this date, may continue to manually process passports. It is possible, however, that member states that process passports electronically may not accept non-machine-readable passports.
Read more: Setting the Record Straight On E-Passports in Indonesia
“Today, we launched the e-passport. This is to anticipate forgery,” Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar told reporters at the House of Representatives.
The use of e-passports, or biometric passports, is mandatory by 2015 for countries that are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization. In Indonesia, though, the documents are being used on a trial basis.
Read more: New Indonesian E-Passports Will Eliminate Forgery: Govt
The use of e-passports, which could not be faked, would increase security of the immigration documents, Minister Patrialis said.
The new e-passport will have an electronic chip embedded inside the book for a more accurate identification process.
The electronic-based information technology adopts and follows the security standard of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).
The head of the Civil Registration Agency, Franky Mangatas Panjaitan, said that the city expected by the end of this year, all 6.4 million Jakartans eligible for the ID cards would join the program.
“We have assigned a single identity number to everyone in our database. All the people need to do is apply at the local subdistrict office,” Franky told The Jakarta Post.