Resident Identity Card


The Resident Identity Card is an official identity document for personal identification in the People's Republic of China. According to the second chapter, tenth clause of the Resident Identity Card Law, residents are required to apply for resident identity cards from the local Public Security Bureau, sub-bureaus or local police precincts.

History

Prior to 1984, citizens within the People's Republic of China were not required to obtain or carry identification in public. On April 6, 1984, the State Council of the People's Republic of China passed the Identity Card Provisional Bill, commencing the process of gradual introduction of personal identification, in the footsteps of many developed countries at the time. The first generation identification cards were single paged cards made of polyester film. Between 1984 and 1991, trials for the new identity card system took place in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. Shan Xiurong, a Chinese Opera performer and soprano from Beijing, was the first person to receive a first-generation identity card in China.
On September 6, 1985, the Standing Committee of the 12th National People's Congress passed the Identity Card Bill of the People's Republic of China, which regulated that all citizens over the age of 16 apply for identification cards. At that point, the Ministry of Public Security of the People's Republic of China created a unified authority responsible for the issuing and management of the ID cards. From 2003, it is reported that a total of 1.14 billion ID cards have been created in China, for a total of 960,000,000 holders. However, as a result of technological development and certain techniques made available to the civilian population, the existing cards became relatively easier to counterfeit, opening the increasing threat of false identification.
On June 1, 2003, the National People's Congress passed the new Resident Identity Card Law, which expanded the scope of documents issued, and allowed soldiers in the People's Liberation Army and members of the People's Armed Police to apply for special identity cards. Individuals under the age of 16 were also permitted to voluntarily apply for an identification card. The law also established the use of newer, second-generation cards, which are machine-readable and more difficult to forge.

Contents

The identity card contains basic information regarding the individual, such as the following:
;Reverse side
  • Full name – in Chinese characters only. Non-Chinese ethnic names and foreign names are transliterated into Chinese. First-generation ID cards contained handwritten names for rare Chinese characters, whilst the second-generation cards exclusively used computer-printed text in a larger font compared to that of the first generation, and do not support rarer characters.
  • Gender – containing one character for either male or female.
  • Ethnicity – as officially listed by the People's Republic of China.
  • Date of birth – listed in the Gregorian calendar format, in YYYY年MM月DD日 Big-endian order.
  • Domicile – the individual's permanent residence as dictated by the Identity Card Bill of the People's Republic of China.
  • Identification number
  • Photo of the individual
;Obverse side
  • Issuing authority
  • The limits to validity of the document
In addition, more detailed personal information can be obtained by viewing hukou information from the card database. Starting on January 1, 2013, Beijing has started trials to include fingerprints in the ID cards, making it more difficult to forge ID cards or for people to use the ID cards of others.
In 1984, discussion over the contents of the identity card became controversial regarding whether to include details such as "marital status" and "occupation"; considering the actual situation of the People's Republic of China at the time, these details ultimately were not included in the ID card.
The first-generation ID cards contained a black-and-white photograph portrait of the individual; following the introduction of the second-generation cards, all identification portraits are printed in colour. From 1 January 2013 a mandatory switch to the second-generation cards came into force; all first-generation cards became void and unusable. If used, first-generation cards are treated as expired ID cards, and will not be accepted. It is a criminal offense to accept first-generation ID cards if the person who accepts it knows that it is a first-generation card.
The dimensions of the second-generation cards are 85.725 mm × 53.975 mm × 0.900 mm, and the identity photo is sized at 358 × 441 pixels, printed at a resolution of 350dpi on RGB using 24-bit True Color, prepared using JPEG compression techniques in line with the requirements of ISO DIS 10918-1. The final image appears as a 26 mm × 32 mm portrait box in the top-right hand corner.

Additional features in ethnic minority areas

Within the ethnic minority regions in China, identity cards possess corresponding text in the respective minority language for both first-generation and second-generation cards. For example, cards officially signed and issued in Guangxi all contain accompanying text in Zhuang, as well as Chinese characters. According to the fourth clause of the Resident Identity Card Law, "based on the de facto situation within the organs of self-government within autonomous ethnic regions, the content of the resident identity card can, alongside Chinese characters, be decided to include the text of the ethnic group exercising regional autonomy or choice of a local generic text". This law permits resident identity cards within designated ethnic minority regions to have bilingual text, and depending on region, cards may contain accompanying text in Zhuang, Uyghur, Yi, Tibetan, Mongolian or Korean.
Ethnic minority residents represented by the local autonomous region can apply to have an additional ethnic minority language displayed on their identity cards, whilst Han Chinese and other ethnic residents' cards only have Chinese characters displayed. Ethnic minorities within their representative autonomous regions can have their personal name displayed in both their native language and Chinese characters; for example, within Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, a card belonging to a Uyghur may display the cardholder's name as "", however ethnic Kazakhs and Xibe people living in Xinjiang may only have their names written in Chinese. The following table shows the languages used on identity cards within minority regions:
FieldSimplified Chinese
ZhuangTibetan
MongolUyghur
Nuosu
Korean
Name姓名
SINGQMINGZ


ꑫꂓ
이름
Gender性别
SINGQBIED


ꌺꅪ
성별
Ethnicity民族
MINZCUZ


ꊿꋅ
민족
Date of birth出生
SENG


ꒆꄮ
출생
Year-Month-Day年月日
NIENZ NYIED HAUH


ꈎ ꆪ ꑍ
년 월 일
Domicile住址
DIEGYOUQ


ꀀꅉ
주소
Resident Identity number公民身份号码
GUNGHMINZ SINHFWN HAUMAJ


ꇬꂱꇭꀧꊫꌐꀕꂷ
공민신분증번호
Issuing authority签发机关
CIEMFAT GIHGVANH


ꇭꀧꊫꌐꃑꅉ
발급기관
Validity有效期限
MIZYAUQ GEIZHANH


ꌬꉆꄮꈉ
유효기한

Identity card number

From October 1, 1999, the PRC State Council approved the establishment of a citizen identification number system, and currently consists of an 18-digit code. This number has a function similar to that of the social security number in the United States. Each citizen has a unique number that remains unchanged for their entire lifetime.
  • Address code refers to the resident's location, where administrative divisions have their own specific codes. Change of address does not modify this code, however, which means that the code therefore reflects one's birthplace or the location of one's first-time card issuance.
  • Date of Birth in the form YYYY-MM-DD.
  • Order code is the code used to disambiguate people with the same date of birth and address code. Men are assigned to odd numbers, women assigned to even numbers.
  • The Checksum is the final digit, which confirms the validity of the ID number from the first 17 digits, utilizing ISO 7064:1983, MOD 11-2. The checksum is obtained by:
  1. Marking the Identity card number right-to-left ， for the parity-check codes;
  2. Weight coefficient calculation ;
  3. :
  4. Calculation of
;Checksum derivation process in Visual Basic

Dim a, w, s,id
msgbox "This procedure for checking the identity card number and or-bit",vbokonly+vbinformation,"identity check procedures"
id=inputbox
if vartype <> 0 then
'Test the legality of the importation of numbers
l = 0
do until l = 1
l = 1
p = ""
if len <> 17 then
if len <> 15 then
l = 0
p = "enter the median is not correct, please enter 15 or 17-digit."
end if
end if
for i = 1 to len
a = mid
if asc < asc or asc > asc then
l = 0
p = p & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "Please enter the number, do not include the characters“" & a & "”。"
exit for
end if
next
if l = 0 then
id = inputbox
end if
loop
'Will be number 15 or 17 places to number
if len = 15 then
id = left & "19" & right
end if
'Number 17 for the calculation of parity-check codes
for i = 2 to 18
a = mid
w = 2^ mod 11
s = a * w + s
next
s = mod 11
if s = 10 then s = "X"
'After checking the number of output
inputbox "the identity card number of the parity-check codes for the“" & s & "”" & vbcrlf & vbcrlf & "by checking the ID card numbers are as follows:", "Check completed", id & s
end if

;Checksum derivation process in TypeScript

// Must input 17 bit string of RID from left to right
function calcChecksum
// Test
alert; // will alert 6

;Checksum derivation process in Ruby

  1. accepts first 17 digits of the card number and calculates checksum
def calculate_checksum
sum = 0
card_id.reverse.each_char.with_index do |ch, idx|
w = % 11
sum += ch.to_i * w
end
% 11
end
puts checksum # first 17 digits
  1. => 10
puts checksum
  1. => 6

;Checksum derivation process in Python

>>> id_checksum = lambda s: % 11
>>> id_checksum
6L
>>> id_checksum
10L # according to the standard, this means 'X'

;Checksum derivation process in PHP

/**
*身份证验证，传入身份证，返回true即为正确。 ID number validation, pass in ID number, return true if success.
*只能传入字符串，传入参数必须加引号。 can only pass in strings, parameter should be surrounded by quote marks.
**/
function check_id_number

;Checksum derivation process in R

> checkCode
function
> print
10