R. Hartzell mentions:
…your bank accounts, bank CDs, credit cards, and private life insurance all use your ARC number, however I suspect that this is untrue. Commonly, such accounts use the foreigner’s passport number. The post office uses the TAX ID number [19600101AA etc.], while the phone co. uses the passport number.
Even if plans to give permanent residents a standard ID number go through numbers like AA1234567 with two letters at the front will be little help in allowing us to participate in various automated services that assume a standard ROC ID #.
In the USA, non citizens can not only get standard looking social security numbers, but they can also become citizens without the supreme sacrifice of ones original citizenship as in Taiwan.
I think that I have found some information on foreigners getting a standard ID number. It is on the National Police Administration website at http://nweb.npa.gov.tw/fore-eng/a_b_6.htm
However, the English is very hard to understand. Can anyone decipher it and tell us what it says?
A friend of mine has an APRC. He went to the Taipei Police Headquarters today to get his standard ID number.
According to what he learned today, the requirements for applying for this number are:
Bring your ARC/APRC and your passport
Fill out the standard form which is available at the police station. No photo is required.
They will stamp the new number on the back of your old ARC/APRC. You will not get a new card unless there is no more space left on the back of the card.
Note: The new number basically follows the Taiwan ID numbering system consisting of two letters followed by 8 digits e.g. AC12345678
(the first letter in the new ID number for foreigners represents the city in which you were first issued an ARC/APRC. The coding is A = TPE and E = KHH. The second letter represents your sex. The coding is C = male and D = female, but don’t ask me why).
Richard, thanks a lot for all of your hard work so that foreigners in Taiwan can finally get ID numbers which are 10 digits long! It has always been extremely inconvenient in Taiwan to not have an ID number. I have needed it for my telephone bill, my electric bill, my water bill, my internet account, my “household registration” (hu4 kou3 ming2 bu4), claiming money from the fa1 piao4 lottery, and even applying for membership cards at wholesale warehouses like Carrefour.
However, I live in Jiayi County, and it would take me more than four hours to get to Taipei by train, plus more time to take a taxi from the Taipei train station to the police headquarters. Could I just go to the foreign affairs police here in Jiayi County, or do I have to go to the police headquarters in Taipei to get my ID number?