A new tender for the mass issue of smart, unforgeable identity cards will be published by the end of 2004, and the first cards will be distributed towards the end of 2005, Minister of Transport Meir Sheetrit told "Globes" last night. Sheetrit said that, at the same time, the page bearing personal details and picture of the holder in passports would also be replaced.
The smart identity card will be a magnetic card with the holder's picture imprinted within it. The magnetic strip will contain the relevant information. It has not yet been decided which personal details will appear on it, besides identity details and picture.
Sheetrit was responsible for the matter when he was at the Ministry of Finance. He was asked to continue dealing with it after receiving the transport portfolio. He rejected the pressure to hand over issuance of the card to the Israeli branch of US computer company Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ), which won the first tender. The tender was cancelled recently following the appeal lodged by the other bidders in the High Court of Justice, and despite Hewlett Packard's announcement that the claims against it had been withdrawn.
It transpired that the bidders appealing against it had withdrawn their objections after Hewlett Packard expressed readiness to share the project with them.
Sheetrit said he feared collusion and was not prepared to have anything to do with under-the-table arrangements. As far as he is concerned, all those involved in the affair missed the boat once the High Court of Justice cancelled the tender.
Sheetrit also said that, during the time wasted in the legal dispute, on top of the period during which the tender took place, new technologies had been developed worthy of being adopted for this sensitive document, particularly in the prevention of forgery. He said committees of experts were currently examining all the latest innovations and on the basis of these drawing up the technical specification for the new tender.
The project is a costly one, according to Sheetrit, with the cost of issuing a single card liable to reach NIS 70. It has not yet been decided whether the public will be required to pay the full cost or a subsidized fee.
Sheetrit noted that in the process of replacing identity cards the government would be able for the first time to find people holding forged cards. The current ID card can be forged fairly easily. The government estimates that hundreds of thousands of people hold forged identity cards.
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on September 7, 2004