The Ministry of the Interior has prepared a new NIS 300 million tender for smart ID cards, and is expected to publish it next week. Sources inform "Globes" that for the first time, the ministry plans to charge a fee when citizens exchange their old blue ID cards for new smart cards.
Under the proposal, which will soon be submitted for approval by the fees committee at the Ministry of Finance and the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, old ID cards will be replaced free of charge for the first year. Those who do not replace their old ID cards within a year will have to pay NIS 44, and the fee will increase to NIS 88 six months after that. Smart ID cards will be issued free of charge to new immigrants and citizens reaching the age of 16.
The old ID cards have always been issued for free, except in cases of theft, loss, or damage, when a NIS 75 fee was imposed.
The law requires every citizen to carry an ID card, meaning that Israel will force its citizens to pay for fulfilling a duty that it has imposed on them.
Senior Ministry of the Interior officials said that the purpose of the fee was to motivate people to change their old ID cards in the first year after the new smart ID cards are introduced.
Ministry of the Interior figures show that 574,000 ID cards were issued in 2004, of which 110,000 were replacements of lost cards, 260,000 were replacement of cards that had either been damaged or had to be updated, 160,000 were new cards, and 44,000 were replacements of stolen cards (compared with 26,000 stolen cards in 2003).
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on February 16, 2005