National Data Base And Registration Authority
The National Database and Registration Authority (Urdu:نادرا; reporting name:NADRA), is an independent, autonomous and constitutionally established institution of the Government of Pakistan that performs government databases and statistically manages the sensitive registration database of all the national citizens of the State of Pakistan.[1]
It is responsible for issuing the computerized national identity cards to the citizens of Pakistan, maintaining their sensitive informational upgraded in the government databases, and securing national identities of the citizens of Pakistan from being stolen and theft.[2] It is one of the largest government database institution, employing more than 11,000 people in more than 800 domestic offices and five international offices.[1][2] It also claims to hold the record for maintaining the largest biometric database of citizens in the world.[1]
Codified by the Second Amendment, §30 of the Constitution of Pakistan in 2000, the constitution grants powers to NADRA to enact civil registration and sensitive databases of Pakistan's citizens; all databases are kept in extreme secrecy and security to ensure the safety of its citizen's databases. As of present, it is currently directed and headed by Muhammad Tariq Malik, as its designated and appointed chairman.[3]
History
Main articles: Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 and Bangladesh Liberation War
After the establishment of State of Pakistan, Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan launched the Personal Identity System (PIS) program to registered, managed and issued all national identification cards to the citizens of Pakistan, including the East Pakistanis in East-Pakistan and the Indian Muslims immigrants settling in elsewhere in Pakistan. Changes were carried out by Election Commission of Pakistan in 1965 for the process of the voter's registration to hold the nationwide 1965 presidential election. In 1969–70, the amendments in the PIS program continue by the Election commission until the election commission supervised the 1970 general elections.
After the 1971 war with India, followed by the accession of the East-Pakistan as Bangladesh, a new statistical database system was needed to ensure the safety of Pakistan's citizens as well as the national security of the country.[4] In 1973, a new database system was was codified under the Second Amendment, §30, of the Constitution of Pakistan to perform and contain the statistical database of the citizens of Pakistan. Registration of Pakistan's citizens and statistic database in government's computer accounts was started in 1973, with the promulgation of the constitution of the country. This new program was visioned and started by then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.[4]
In 1973, in a parliamentary session, Bhutto stated in parliament to the people of Pakistan, "due to the absence of full statistical database of the people of this country, this country is operating in utter darkness."[4] The government start issuing the National Identity Card (NIC) numbers to its citizens and began performing government databases of the people in the government computers.[4]
In 1996, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto held talks with the American firm, the IBM system for civil registry and databases. The Ministry of Interior (MoI) signed a multimillion dollar contract with IBM and finalized a Biometric system with IBM for setting up a completeInformation and communications technology infrastructure for the National Citizen Database and issuance of computerized National ID Card. In 1998, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif established the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) was established as National Database Organization (NDO), an attached department under the Ministry of Interior.
Since 2004, NADRA has maintained its position among the top 50 companies of the world in the field of secure document solution integration.[citation needed]. NADRA not only takes pride in producing the Computerised National ID Card of Pakistan but also in producing the world’s first[citation needed] Machine Readable Multi-Biometric Electronic Passport[clarification needed].
Computerised National Identity Card
The Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) is a computerised national identity cardissued by NADRA to Pakistani citizens. The CNIC was introduced in 2000 and, by 2012, over 89.5 million CNICs had been issued.[5]
The CNIC is issued first at the age of 18. Under Pakistani law, it is not compulsory to carry one. However, for Pakistani citizens, the CNIC is mandatory for (i) voting, (ii) opening/operating bank accounts, (iii) obtaining passport, (iv) purchase of vehicles and land, (v) obtaining driver licence, (vi) purchasing air/rail ticket, (vii) obtaining SIM of mobile telephone, (viii) obtaining connection of electricity, gas, and water, (ix) securing admission in college/post-graduate institute, and (x) other major monetary transactions.
Requirements
In Pakistan, all adult citizens must register for the Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) with a unique number upon reaching the age of 18. It serves as an identification document to authenticate an individual's identity as the citizen of Pakistan. Before introduction of the CNIC, manual National Identity Cards (NICs) were issued to citizens of Pakistan. Today, the Government has shifted all its existing records of National Identity Cards (NIC) to the central computerised database managed by NADRA. New CNIC's are machine-readableand carry facial and fingerprint information.
Every citizen is required to have a NIC number, and the number is required for many activities such as getting a driver licence or passport, registering a vehicle, receiving social insurance/Zakat funding, enrolling in school, college or technical institute, filing a legal affidavit, wiring funds, paying taxes, opening a bank account, getting a utility connection (electricity, phone, mobile phone, water and sewer, natural gas), etc. However, since some births in the country are not registered, and some Pakistanis do not conduct any of the activities described above, a few do not have ID cards. Obtaining an CNIC also costs PKR 100 (USD 0.98), and this inevitably reduces the number of people who can afford it.[citation needed] In 2007, NADRA announced that it had issued 60 million CNIC (the C standing for computerised) numbers, which is approximately one-third of the population. The authority had issued the 10 millionth CNIC on February 11, 2002; 20 millionth on June 18, 2002; 30 millionth on Dec 22, 2003; 40 millionth on Oct 1, 2004; and 50 millionth CNIC on Feb 14, 2006.[6]
Features
A unique 13-digit number are assigned at birth when the parents complete the child's birth registration form (Form RG-2, commonly known as B-Form), and then a National Identity Card (NIC) with the same number is issued at the age of 18. Until, 2001 NIC numbers were 11 digits long. In 2001-2002, the authority started issuing 13-digit NIC numbers along with their new biometric ID cards. The first 5 digits are based on the applicant's locality, the next 7 are serial numbers, and the last digit is a check digit. The old manual NIC numbers are invalid as of 1 January 2004.
The ID card has the following information on it: Legal Name, Gender (male, female, or transgender), Father's name (Husband's name for married females), Identification Mark, Date of Birth, National Identity Card Number, Family Tree ID Number, Current Address, Permanent Address, Date of Issue, Date of Expiry, Signature, Photo, and Fingerprint (Thumbprint) NADRA also records the applicant's religion, but this is not noted on the CNIC itself. NADRA has registered over 90% of women in the Pakistani nation.
Security features
In order to address the security concerns, NADRA have incorporated 36 security features in the physical design of the card, making it one of the securest cards in the world. The card is printed in multiple layers and each layer has its own security features. The chip is encrypted by extremely competent software developers at NADRA and secure communication protocols have been determined for being read by remote devices.
To enable remote verification of citizens a match-on-card applet has been designed by NADRA. When a citizen places their card into a card reader, the reader will first authenticate itself to the card. In return the card will verify its authenticity to the reader. If both the verifications are successful, the device will ask for a fingerprint impression of the citizen and match it with the record on the card. This will enable verifications of individuals in the remotest parts of Pakistan. So say in a decade when an individual casts vote, the government may ascertain that the person casting the vote is indeed the same as the one on the electoral roll. This is only one of the thousands of scenarios of identity fraud prevention that the card empowers.
A majority of the space in the chip has been made available for the private sector to use for their products and services. It might appear expensive for the private sector to use this card initially but once the number of citizens having critical mass is reached, it will be more profitable for the private sector to use this secure and universal platform.[7]
Smart National Identity Card
NADRA introduced the Smart National Identity Card (SNIC), Pakistan's first national electronic identity card, in October 2012. Pakistan's SNIC contains a data chip and 36 security features. The SNIC complies with ICAO standard 9303 and ISO standard 7816-4. The SNIC can be used for both offline and online identification, voting, pension disbursement, social and financial inclusion programmes and other services.[8][9] NADRA aims to replace all 89.5 million CNICs with SNICs by 2020.
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