Indonesian electronic ID’s cheaper than other countries' : Official

tribunnews.com

Civil and Citizenship Administration Director General Irman says that the cost of making an electronic identification card (KTP), which the Home Affairs Ministry will launch this year, is cheaper compared to e-KTP used in other countries.


Irman said that the e-KTP project in Indonesia cost a total of around Rp 6.3 billion (US$733,000) for the production of around 160-170 million cards. This amounts to Rp 35,000 for every e-KTP.

“Compare it to Malaysia, where it costs as much as Rp 85,000 per KTP or the one in Germany which costs R 450,000,” Irman said Friday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.

Irman conceded that there is a difference in chip capacity. The Malaysian e-KTP has a 32 kilobyte capacity, while the Indonesian e-KTP is only 8 kilobytes.

However, the Indonesian e-KTP is complete with interface technology that can be applied to widen the use of e-KTP to other applications.

Irman said that a large-capacity chip was not really needed, and that a 32 kilobyte chip would inflate the budget to around Rp 16 trillion. Referring to other countries, Germany uses a 16 kilobyte chip, while China uses a 4 kilobyte chip as it does not record fingerprints.

Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi said that the use of 4 kilobyte chip for the e-KTP had actually been considered.

“When we discussed it further with technical team from 15 ministries and institutions, we agreed to use the 8 kilobyte chip,” he said, adding that an image of recorded fingerprints on the 8 kilobyte chip is much sharper and therefore much more readable.

TheJakartaPost