[quote]UNIFIED REGISTRATION NUMBERS ADOPTED FOR FOREIGNERS
The government has formulated a unified registration system for foreign residents to minimize inconvenience and facilitate administrative management, Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien Yu said Tuesday.
Yu said the new system is also applicable to Hong Kong and Macau citizens, mainland Chinese people who have come to Taiwan to live with their blood relatives or to work in the high-tech sector, as well as Republic of China citizens who do not have household registration here.
"The new mechanism is patterned after the identity registration system for ROC nationals, " Yu explained, adding that under the new system, each eligible applicant will be given a residency certificate that bears a 10-digit number rather than the original seven-digit number.
The new residency certificates can be used to apply for telephone numbers, credit cards, driving licenses and opening bank accounts.
"It is just as convenient as the identification cards for Taiwan citizens, " Yu told a news conference called to announce the new registration mechanism.
According to Yu, the National Police Administration (NPA) under the Ministry of the Interior has spent two years developing this foreigner-friendly residency registration system.
The NPA began to accept applications for the new residency certificates Dec. 1, Yu said, adding that about 610,000 people will benefit from the new measure. [/quote]
Has anyone else heard about this? What does it really mean? Richard?
Well I am for the registration number so long as two months from now they don’t decide to change the policy again. One number would be great. It also seems there will be some added benefits like using it to register things.
Amos, I assume you are talking about the digits on the back of the ARC? I have one on the back. On the front I have other numbers that haven’t changed since I came here.
Jeff, I only got mine last month, but its ten digits. Well, two letters then 8 numbers. Wouldn’t be what they’re on about would it? Just double checked, definately 10.
Likewise had the same 10 digits (two letters 8 numerals) on three different ARCs - one studying, one working and the other JFRV. When I went to get a licence unde the first one they made up some bullshit shen fen zhen beginning with an apostrophe. However when I went to change it they put the ARC number on.
More to that:
Oddly I got a Chinese name put on my most recent ARC. The thing is that that it was the name I used when I first landed and almost never since. A major bummer coz the name on the household registry is different again!
The root of this is name changing fortune tellers, what a con. The missus got her name changed and lured me to do the same. I go to see the “teacher” and do the bai bai, blah blah…'alright luv, if it keeps ya happy". Damn if I didn’t then hit a crisis when I tried to change a job and my previous company had used soley my Chinese name for all those letter of having been let go, experience betc. Worse still, like Yang Shyu- kun, noone can either read, write or use a computer to write her full name!
Sorry Amos I think I was editing my first message as you were writing your reply. I realized that the 10 digit number was on the back of the ARC. I too have one, two letters and 8 numbers. But that number has changed each time I have applied for an ARC.
If you look in todays China Post, and I assume the other two English newspapers as well, there is an article on the front page about this exact subject. Says Foreigners and Mainlanders will be getting new ID cards. Says the police started accepting applications on Dec. 1 (damn the media is slow). Says the old ID cards have 7 numbers, oh the hell with writing all this just go to taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … /18/187612 for the story!
When I went in to register a change of address they stamped the new 10-digit number on the back of my current ARC. If you want the new #, just go get it chopped on there. Easy.
Don’t confuse me, did u get the stamp before or after Dec. 1?
I read the news that the new 10 digit has been issued since April
of this year, but the Dec. 1 new law is totally different, I guess
you would have your old one removed from their database, as
their main purpose is to better keep track of the foreigners
I don’t think you can co-exist with both 7 and 10 digit ID #
as the documents I specified above are map to the old 7 digit
ID already
Hehe. IIRC it was back in October. I don’t have both a 7 and 10 character #, they just didn’t issue me a new ARC, and just noted the new number on the back. It has 8 digits and two letters as per the latest news.
At that time, anyone walking into the copshop with their ARC got it chopped with a new number whether they wanted it or not. I have the feeling the new numbers already exist in the database, it’s just a question of bringing your card up to speed.
[OT]Sure was nice of the Japanese secret police to leave this whole system of ID cards and household registrations in place for the next oppressive regime eh? I bet old CKS was really chuffed at all the work they saved him.[/OT]
[quote]The Taiwan national identity card carries a 10-digit number comprised of one English letter and nine numbers. According to a senior official of the Foreign Affairs Department of the NPA, the last digit of the national ID card and of the new ARC card has a checking function…
In converting the seven-digit ARC number to a 10-digit one, a second letter will be added - C or D depending on the gender of the holder - followed by a zero, the NPA official said. The last digit added at the end of the number will be based on the mathematical formula, he said.
[/quote]
Will this require a new id. Or an alteration of your ARC? And how many digits are one peoples arc’s anyway? Mine has, reading backwards, 7 digits, plus the 0, then a C (male?) then the starting F. So that’s 10 digits. Others??
