News

Hong Kong residents prepare for smart cards

March 11, 2002

HONG KONG - After being identified by cardboard cards for more than a half-century, Hong Kong citizens are about to enter the technology era.

Hong Kong government officials are launching a seven-year, $400 million program to distribute smart cards - cards with computer chips carrying personal information - to all Hong Kong citizens 11 years old and up starting later this year. The cards will replace cardboard cards that Hong Kong citizens have carried since the late 1940s, when mainland China came under communist rule, creating a flow of immigrants to the territory.

Hong Kong is now part of China, but remains under separate government control, thus immigration restrictions remain tight. Hong Kong officials said the smart cards, which will contain names, pictures, birth dates, and biometric information such as thumbprints, will allow Hong Kong citizens easy access in and out of the territory. Self-service kiosks will be available at immigration checkpoints, where biometric scanners will match fingerprints against the images stores on the smart cards.

"We've long had illegal immigration problems and everyone got used to carrying the identity card," Eric Wong, Hong Kong deputy director of immigration, told the Associated Press. "People just think it's a way of life."

But other Hong Kong officials expressed concern that hackers could get into immigration databases and access personal information about Hong Kong citizens.