Citizen Card (Portugal)

Front of Cartão de Cidadão

The Citizen Card (CC) (Portuguese: Cartão de Cidadão) is the new national identity card issued by the Portuguese government to its citizens. The new card was primarily designed to replace the older Bilhete de Identidade (English: Identity Card), which is still in use, and to combine other government documents (including social security documents, the National Health Service card, the taxpayer card and the voter registration card) in one secure card. The CC was introduced by the government of José Sócrates and was first issued in the Azores in mid 2006.

Objectives

The main objective of this document was to reduce the number of identification cards necessary for the citizen to appear before any institutions of the State. THE CC comes equipped with a chip capable of storing personal data encrypted, which according to the Portuguese government guarantees the privacy of the data, for example medical data cannot be read by officials of the financial sector; this is important, in order to avoid excesses use of power in obtaining data and not undermine the privacy of the citizens.

Other documents of identification

For a large number of the effects, the driving license and passport can be still used as a form of identification. However, the "identity card" or "citizen card" is a requirement by the Portuguese authorities. Foreigners must have a passport or identity card in force in their country of origin, including European Union nationals and must at all times be able to provide the identification when requested by officials.

Aspects of the citizen card

The card is in the format of a smart card, and is similar to that of a credit card. The card contains a variety of information and data of the card holder.

The front of the card

• Photograph of the ID card holder
• Surname
• Given/first name
• Gender
• Height
• Nationality
• Date of Birth
• Elements of civil identification, similar to the old Identity Card
• Document number
• Expiry Date
• Card holder's signature

The back of the card

• Names of parents
• Numbers of the different bodies whose cards aggregates and replaces
• Optical reading area

On the chip

• Digital Certificates (Card's authentication and electronic signature)
• The same optical reading area in digital format
• Address and other information (the system will be expandable)

See Also

• Bilhete de Identidade
• Belgian national identity card

References

• Official government page for the Citizen Card in Portuguese
• Overseas consular office will no longer issue the Bilhete de Identidade as of 2008in Portuguese