identity card All Singaporeans and permanent residents are given an identity card (IC)— a credit card- sized plastic card which contains the owner’s name, address, date of birth, country of birth, ethnic group and photograph. Each card carries an image of the holder’s right thumbprint as well as a unique seven- digit number, known as an NRIC (National Registration Identity Card) number. This number is also rendered as a bar code to make it machine- readable. The identity card number is identical to the birth certificate number.

Singapore citizens carry a pink IC while ‘permanent residents’ carry a blue version. All Singaporeans, upon reaching the age of 15, must apply for an IC. The cards are issued by the National Registration Department, which is part of the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

The use of ICs in Singapore can be traced back to 1938. It was in that year that the Registration of Births and Deaths Ordinance made birth and death registration mandatory. In 1948, paper identity cards were introduced to identify people who were born in Singapore. A year after Separation, the National Registration Act (1966) was passed requiring all Singaporeans to register, or re- register, themselves in order to obtain new ICs. These were laminated pieces of paper which had improved security features, such as a photograph that was difficult to substitute.

In 1991, new, credit- card- sized ICs were introduced. These plastic cards introduced the bar code, and carried a photograph and thumbprint, which made them even harder to alter.