{"id":28445,"date":"2014-10-10T15:31:48","date_gmt":"2014-10-10T07:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=28445"},"modified":"2014-10-10T15:31:48","modified_gmt":"2014-10-10T07:31:48","slug":"natl-id-system-a-public-security-threat-lawmaker-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/10\/10\/natl-id-system-a-public-security-threat-lawmaker-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Nat\u2019l ID system; a public security threat, lawmaker says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Shutterstock<\/a>
Shutterstock photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Philippines\u2013The \u201cNational ID System Bill,\u201d which is now subject to the go-signal of the House of Representatives, is a threat to the privacy of the country\u2019s citizens, a party-list lawmaker said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

House Bill 5060 \u2013 which was approved by a joint panel composed of the committees on revision of laws and on appropriations on Friday \u2013 poses \u201ca threat to the security of personal information\u201d of private citizens, ccording to Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate.<\/p>\n

\u201cA national ID system will make it mandatory for all to submit personal information to be aggregated into a single dossier which, if compromised, places the Filipino people at very high personal risk,\u201d Zarate stressed in a statement.<\/p>\n

He cited that if even the automated election process is largely considered unreliable, \u201cwhat more of the personal information of every Filipino?\u201d he said.Committee chair<\/p>\n

Marlyn Primicias-Agabas and appropriations committee chair Isidro Ungab explained that the goal of the ID system is to consolidate all existing forms of government identification into \u201cone integrated and efficient identification body. Under the bill, the Philippine Statistics Authority and the Department of Foreign Affairs will be responsible for the creation and maintenance of a \u201cFilipino Citizen Registry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those in favor of the bill said that the new national ID system \u201cwill institutionalize a national information card for all Filipinos that would ensure facilitation and streamline government transactions, and help promote a progressive society through an efficient delivery of basic services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zarate, however, said that despite the many good intentions and objectives of the bill, the risks are greater still.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone can cite all the good intentions this bill may have, but it lacks foresight. Can our current systems, already weighed down with problems, bear up sufficiently under the requirements of such an implementation involving sensitive personal information? We cannot risk our people\u2019s security to misaddress the problem of bureaucratic inefficiency,\u201d he argued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill looks up to the national ID systems of other countries such as the US, but we all know about the horror stories of CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] surveillance and mishandling,\u201d he added, pointing out that the biggest challenge to the bill is the issue of security.<\/p>\n

This is not the first time the government has sought to establish a national ID system. Twice, there were efforts to launch similar programs \u2013during the Ramos and the Macapagal-Arroyo administrations \u2013 but both attempts failed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines\u2013The \u201cNational ID System Bill,\u201d which is now subject to the go-signal of the House of Representatives, is a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":28447,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,95],"tags":[8171,8167,8170,8168,8169],"class_list":["post-28445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-invasion-of-privacy","tag-national-identification-system","tag-security-threat","tag-national-id-system-bill","tag-house-bill-5060","mauthors-angie-duarte","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}