The government is redesigning the resident registration card. On the 10th, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (hereinafter referred to as MCST) and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (hereinafter referred to as MIS) announced that they will work with the Korea Craft Design Foundation to improve the design of the resident registration card. The current resident registration card was introduced in 1999 and has been in use for 25 years.
On the 11th, various scholars from various fields, including Professor Kim Soo-jung, who was in charge of the next-generation passport design, design critic Choi Beom, Pyeongchang Olympic medal designer Lee Seok-woo, Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation Design Office Deputy Director Hong So-young, font designer Hongik University Professor Min Bon, and Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Researcher Kim Kwon-jung, gathered to give lectures and discuss the next-generation resident registration card design.
The Resident Registration Card was made mandatory in 1968 after an infiltration incident by North Korean special forces. In 1975, the current 13-digit Resident Registration Number system was established, and the current plastic Resident Registration Card was introduced in 1999.
The current resident registration card has excessive exposure of personal information and weak security issues. It can be stolen if only the name, resident registration number, and issuance date are known, and it is difficult to respond quickly because there is no expiration date. The address is not helpful for identification, but it contains a lot of personal information and is easy to manipulate, making it difficult to trust whether it is actually a residence. It does not have an electronic recognition function and is different from international standards, making it difficult to use in various contexts.
The government announced that it will hold a contest for the design of resident registration cards and a contest for national ideas in October. However, there are concerns about conducting public design that affects the entire nation, such as the Seoul Design Citizens’ Contest, through a contest rather than through experts.
Considering that it took 10 years to change the passport design, it is expected that it will take a similar amount of time to change the design of the resident registration card due to the application of counterfeiting technology and the reorganization of the administrative system. It is expected that the resident registration card will become as stylish as the passport.
Starting December 27th in the second half of this year, you can also use your mobile resident registration card. A person who has received a physical resident registration card can only store it on one terminal in his/her name and can receive a reissue every three years.
