The Citizen Card (Portuguese

Portuguese language

Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

: Cartão de Cidadão) is the new national identity card issued by the Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 government to its citizens. The new card was primarily designed to replace the older Bilhete de Identidade (English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

: 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

José Sócrates

José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa, GCIH , commonly known by José Sócrates , is a Portuguese politician who was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 12 March 2005 to 21 June 2011....

 and was first issued in the Azores

Azores

The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...

 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

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

 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

Smart card

A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card , is any pocket-sized card with embedded integrated circuits. A smart card or microprocessor cards contain volatile memory and microprocessor components. The card is made of plastic, generally polyvinyl chloride, but sometimes acrylonitrile...

, and is similar to that of a credit card

Credit card

A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...

. 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