Newborn Owning KTP to become Official National Program by 2017

Liputan6.com, Jakarta - Indonesian young generations with the age between 0-17 years can now indulge in the privilege of owning their own identity card (KTP). Apart from being used as merely identification card, the KTP cards that are distributed to these young people will act as legitimation of their rights even if they are considered underage.

"In the future, we will introduce the new system of allowing newborn to own their own KTP which will accompany their already existing birth certificate," General Directorate for Population Demographics and Civil Registration from the Interior Ministry, Zudan Arif Fakrulloh informed on the evening of October 6 2015 at Negara Grahadi Building in Surabaya, as cited in Antaranews.

The identity card given will contain basic information such as name in accordance to the birth certificate, postal address, name of parents, identity card number and other additional information needed.

"The card will be in the same form as the usual KTP card of an adult. However, the electronic one is not available yet for them and they will be entitled to one as soon as they reach the age of 18," he further informed.

According to Arif, such card will be very beneficial as it can multifunction as an instrument that would legitimize the owner's right and can be used for other purposes such as school registration, bank registration and registration for healthcare. Most importantly, the card will make it easier for the authority to conduct identification process on underage victims.

"Right now, underage population still has to go through intricate process of showing their family card to sort out other matters such as social security (BPJS), hospital, etc," he continued.

The identity card for newborn to the age of 18 will become officially available next year (2016) for regional and city areas where newborn with birth certificates obtained already reached 75%.

By 2017, this program will be a national program for all Indonesian newborn.(Akp/Ein)