Turkish citizens to be issued electronic ID cards

 The new cards are expected to facilitate the ID verification process and minimize the number of misidentification incidents. The new IDs will first be used in the fields of health and social security. The pilot program was launched with a joint protocol agreed by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and Social Security Board (SGK). Within the three-stage pilot project, the citizenship card and card readers will be developed by the UEKAE, which will also create the operating system and run the tests of the applications.

In the second stage, a pilot program will be implemented in a district to be chosen by the involved parties. In the final stage, the application will be implemented in nearby districts to expand its reach to 300,000.

Printing and distribution of citizenship card

The Interior Ministry's General Directorate on Citizenship Affairs and the Health Ministry will join the pilot program in terms of testing the processes for the use of the cards in health services and their printing and distribution. Before continuing, the State Planning Organization (DPT) and other relevant parties will review the program after the tests.

The General Directorate on Population and Citizenship Affairs will be responsible for the production and distribution of the cards nationwide. At this stage, the other processes including production of chips and printing of the cards will also be carried out by the directorate.

 Content, shape, size, protective measures to be embedded on the card and the system and technology to be implemented during the printing and distribution will be agreed by the relevant institutions in accordance with the legislation in effect. The transactions relevant to the production and distribution of the citizenship card will carried out under the Valuable Banknotes Law and other laws and regulations on the subject matter.

It will replace the ID card

The citizenship card, which will replace the current ID card, will hold static information only. The card will mainly store the identification information of the bearer. In services requiring a citizenship number, the card will be used to verify the ID of the bearer. Fingerprint match will be used as a biometric ID verification method. The fingerprint will only be stored on the card and not in any other database.

Public institutions will not require any other smart card other than the citizenship card in their transactions, with the exception of the situations specifically referred to in the relevant laws (passport, driver's license etc.).The security criteria with regard to the systems and technologies used in the citizenship cards and card readers will be determined by the UEKAE, which will consider international standards. The same institution will also do the security tests of the system and monitor the compliance with the criteria.

The national smart card operation system developed by the UEKAE will be used in the citizenship card. All intellectual property rights with regard to the technologies developed by the UEKAE will be regulated under the contracts consistent with relevant laws and regulations. The coordination between the Interior Ministry, Justice Ministry, Finance Ministry, Health Ministry, Social Security Board, Security Directorate and the UEKAE will be ensured by the State Planning Organization.