Proposition 53K1627

Projet de loi modifiant l'article 6, § 6, de la loi du 19 juillet 1991 relative aux registres de la population, aux cartes d'identité, aux cartes d'étranger et aux documents de séjour et modifiant la loi du 8 août 1983 organisant un Registre national des personnes physiques.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

April 7, 2011

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

administrative formalities civil status identity document

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld LDD MR VB

Voted to reject

N-VA

Party dissidents ¶

• Jacqueline Galant (MR) abstained from voting.

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Discussion ¶

Nov. 17, 2011 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, the present draft was transmitted to us by the Senate and was discussed during the committee meetings of 12, 18 and 26 October 2011. I will report on the first meeting and the hearings. After that, Mr. Rutten will take over my report.

In its introductory statement, the Minister of Internal Affairs points out the objective of the draft, in particular the extension of the life of the electronic identity card from five to ten years.

The Minister also notes that the eID must of course also meet a number of technical requirements, which must also remain guaranteed in case of an extension of the life of the card.

The three contracting partners involved in the eID should also be able to provide the necessary safeguards, according to the Minister. These include the firm Steria as the builder for the technical infrastructure, the firm Zetes as the card producer and the certified certification service Certipost.

The committee then decides to organise hearings, in which the head of the public service Fedict, as well as the card producer, Zetes, will be heard.

The Commission wants to ensure that the necessary safeguards can be provided to guarantee the safe use of the eID in the extension of its life.

During the hearing, Mr. Strickx clarifies the role of Fedict as responsible for the implementation of e-government projects.

He also points out the growing role of eID and the expansion of various public services to an internet platform, such as Tax-on-web and e-Health.

Creating a framework where the validity of the eID can be adjusted depending on the age group is a good thing for the speaker. However, he is opposed to raising the maximum validity of the eID from five to ten years.

The main arguments for this are the rapid technological evolution, where extending the life of the card would actually mean freezing the technological development of the card for ten years.

The second argument concerns the high maintenance costs. The different versions of the card will be supported for ten years on different platforms.

Currently, maintenance costs over a three-year period amount to approximately 850 euros. The extension to ten years would mean approximately a doubling of that cost.

A third argument concerns the higher security risks, in particular the key length on the card, and thus also the risk that the key will endure possible attacks for ten years.

The committee then hears Mr. Depoortere, as a representative of Zetes NV, the producer of the cards. Mr Depoortere points out the conflicting interests that the firm has in the extension of the lifetime, in particular because the firm thus sees its turnover as if halved. It also points out the technical risks associated with the design. Extending the life of the card will undoubtedly affect the cost of the card and will ⁇ make it more expensive, including through higher quality requirements and a longer warranty on the use of the card.

The various groups then speak. Mr Dedecker, on behalf of the N-VA Group, has several questions related to the design, in particular regarding the cost of future cards, the security of the current card, the forecasts for the new card and the technical aspects associated with the extension of the card, such as placing new key pairs on the card.

The speaker of the CD&V faction has significant concerns regarding the benefits of the design. She points out the many negative concerns expressed by the two speakers during the hearings. It also asks whether there are actually benefits from extending the life span and how much is currently invested in the development of new technologies.

Mr Somers points out to the Open Vld group the clear advantages that he considers to be associated with the extension of the card. In the first place, according to Mr Somers, this will mean a significant reduction in the cost of society. The citizen has less to go to the municipality house to get a new card and has only to pay for a new card every ten years. Also for the municipalities it means significant savings on personnel and operating costs. In addition, Mr. Somers points to a study of Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography that does see the possibility of extending to 10 years, provided that a certain number of conditions are met.

Mr Thiébaut expresses for the PS the vision of Mr Somers regarding the lower cost for the citizen and municipal authorities. According to him, it is, by the way, the task of the government to find a balance between the security aspects associated with the extension of the card, and the social cost of the card.

In his response, Mr. Strickx answers questions about the current cost of the eID project and the investments for the development of new technologies. For example, Certipost would require 3.5 million euros as additional costs for the extension of the certificates from five to ten years. The cost of a card is now 10 euros, while the one with an extension will be about 16 euros. Mr. Strickx has no knowledge of bugs in current chips, but he points out that extending the lifetime increases the security risks.

The representative of Fedict believes that the extension would bring a reduction in the cost of society, both for the citizen and for the municipalities. However, it should be noted that the placement of new key pairs on the chip must be done in the municipality house anyway. This will also require the displacement of citizens. Fedict will spend approximately one million euros over a three-year period on the technological renewal of the eID.

The rest of the report will be presented by colleague Rutten.

A number of colleagues made a statement in the general discussion.

I shall briefly repeat the essence of the statements of Mr. Dedecker, Mr. Thiébaut, Mrs. Dierick and Mr. Somers, whom I have once replaced. Hence my reporting. For a more extensive report, I refer to the written report.

Mr. Dedecker of the N-VA agreed with age-related adjustments, mainly with regard to those over 75, but for him things were different in the category of 18 to 75 years. He called for the preservation of the five-year period.

He referred to the hearings, which, in his opinion, showed that the benefits do not outweigh the disadvantages.

He also referred to Belgium’s leading position in innovation in this sector, which is threatened by the extension.

He also calls into question the reduction of administrative burdens and says that one will have to go to the municipality house every five years.

Even the financial burden reductions are not clean for him. He believes that there will be higher costs.

In addition, new applications will be able to be developed over a period of ten years, which can lead to the coexistence of different cards. This would also have an impact on costs.

The conclusion of Mr Dedecker’s presentation from the N-VA is that the extension in the age category from 18 to 75 years is not opportune.

The Minister responded that the basic cost price of the cards is currently 12 euros, possibly supplemented with a municipal tax and that that basic cost price will not change.

Furthermore, the transitional period is only five years. This means that two versions of the cards can therefore exist for up to five years side by side.

The Minister also repeated that the extension of the duration of the cards can only come after all technical issues have been solved. She also indicates that the committee will have to take a stand on the opportunity, which is the task of the committee, and indicates that if the necessary guarantees are present, the extension from five to ten years means a significant increase in the ease of use for citizens.

Then followed an explanation by Mr Eric Thiébaut of the PS. He emphasized the importance of user-friendliness for citizens, which was originally also the intention of our colleagues in the Senate. He argues that the rapid technological evolution can be both an argument for and an argument against. His conclusion on behalf of his group is that his group can support the measure for those over 75. He concludes that the debate is about security guarantees. According to him, the hearings held show that those guarantees can be fulfilled.

In her presentation, Ms. Leen Dierick of CD&V praised the simplification for the citizen as well as the savings for the local authorities. She is concerned about the possible technical problems that have emerged during the hearing. The hearing concluded that an extension was possible if a number of conditions were met. The CD&V group therefore expressed its concern that the technical guarantees must first be fulfilled before the draft law can come into force. Following Mr Dierick’s comments, the Minister has confirmed that the bill will indeed enter into force only after all technical conditions have been met.

Finally, there was a presentation by Mr. Bart Somers. He noted that the costs incurred by the local authorities for the issuance of the cards and thus also for the savings in this regard are even underestimated. The actual savings for municipalities may be a multiplier of the additional costs for certificates.

During the hearing it was shown that the extension to ten years is indeed feasible. The Minister has also given the necessary guarantees that the technical issues will be clarified first.

The proposal is therefore to be defended from a concern for customer-friendliness, on the one hand, and the support of local governments, on the other.

With regard to Article 2, Mr. Somers noted that the authorization to the King in paragraph 2 should not be interpreted restrictively. Shorter and longer periods may be determined. However, the provision does not prejudice any other restrictions or permissions that exist in other laws. As an example, the speaker refers to Article 13, 1 of the Foreigners Act with residence permits of limited duration.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would rather summarize my view. For the written version, I would like to refer to the written report.

I would like to start my presentation with a little nostalgia. I would therefore like to take you back in time, in the dark purple times, to one of the light points there, the year 2005.

Our country, and also this institution, the Chamber, was then visited by no less than Bill Gates, the founder and then CEO of Microsoft. Mr. De Croo – he is no longer present at the moment – ⁇ still remembers it; he reassured Mr. Gates and said that this time he would not get a cake in the face.

Of course, Bill Gates did not come here for our excellent pastry, no, he came for very different things, he wanted to know more about our electronic identity card. In fact, Belgium had then made the courageous decision, as one of the few at that time, to generalize and accelerate the deployment of the electronic identity card, which was introduced in 2003. Citizens who still had a paper identity card that was still valid for years were called early to the municipality house to get such a new electronic card there.

Mr. Vanvelthoven has, unfortunately, disappeared in the meantime, ⁇ he flees for this point, with pain in the heart, because he had then made the decision to send the citizen early to the town hall. I have no doubt, that was an excellent decision, Mr. Vanvelthoven did not do that to bully those citizens, of course not. I see gniffel, maybe you doubt it, but I am sure, I am convinced of the right decision of Mr. Vanvelthoven, it was not to bully the citizens.

No, this was a signal to application developers that in the short term, in the very short term, millions of people would have this piece of technology. It was a signal to those application developers that they would have a sufficiently large market in the short term so it is worth investing in applications.

We have done it ourselves too. We have also developed Tax-on-web and have thus given a very good example. Those other developers also jumped on the car.

We also received praise words from Bill Gates. He said he was very interested in the applications of the eID, that it was a fantastic thing that Belgium wanted to play a leading role in this area and that he was sure that other countries would follow.

He also promised at that time that his company, Microsoft, the American giant, the software giant whose software ran on billions of PCs, would make his software compatible with this piece of technology, this piece of technology of this small country.

The Secretary of State, who has disappeared in the meantime, was not a little proud at the time. He stood glittering of pride beside Bill Gates. Ironically, it is today the leading party of the time, then still leading with “ei”, the Open Vld, who wants to carry this head position to the grave.

As a Flemish nationalist, of course, I believe that there are not so many reasons to be proud of this country. Of course not. If there is one, however, it is that we have played a pioneering role here, a pioneering role that has been taken over by many countries, an example that has received international follow-up. That pioneering role, that pioneering role, we give up today. Why Why ? What is there to be proud of?

It is also a shame that there is a lack of another minister here today, namely Minister Van Quickenborne. It is of course Minister Van Quickenborne who is responsible for the e-gov policy. He also always has a mouth full of innovative technologies, new technologies that make the life of citizens easier, that make the functioning of our government more efficient and thus press the cost price for the taxpayer. I quote from his website: “With a little creativity, eID replaces your portfolio. No more bank card, SIS card, driver’s license, home key or access badge.”

It is a very beautiful dream of the minister of the same party who puts this dream on the slope today and carries this bowl to the grave. If it takes ten years for us to implement technological innovation, then we are no longer interesting for application developers. What are we with a ten-year-old outdated technology? How long will it accompany? What can we do with it?

We will exchange our European lead position for a position behind in the peloton. Other European countries will retain their five-year renewal frequency or will reduce their ten-year terms to five years.

Why, my colleagues? Why do we do that? For a burden reduction? The citizen who visits the municipality house once in ten years and saves the full 17 euros. For this we do that, for this we put the whole stuff on the slope. Moreover, it is even an apparent savings. It is not a real savings, both practical and financial. The colleagues Dierick and Rutten have just delivered an excellent report. They also referred to the safety expert COSIC. Although the certificates are valid for ten years, it is recommended for safety reasons to be able to generate new certificates on that existing card.

You can’t do this at home, but you’ll have to go back to the town hall. Goodbye, practical reduction of burden!

We can also doubt this financially. Minister Turtelboom guarantees that the price for the citizen remains 12 euros, plus municipal surcharge. I just heard it differently in the report. Peter Strickx of Fedict states that the price for the federal government is currently 10 euros and will be raised to 16 euros. In other words, if the federal level continues to hand over cards to the municipalities for 12 euros, then we lose on that. This is another cost on the cap of the taxpayer. Where do those costs come from? Of course, there are more expensive cards that last ten years. That ten-year lifetime is guaranteed by giving a discount, a kind of insurance, for cards that expire prematurely. Of course, they charge those costs, they are not a charitable organization.

Certificates are also getting more expensive and the chance of attacks is increasing. At that opportunity, we will also have to insure ourselves, at an unpredictable price. Criminals are not judges. Even a criminal is economically reasonable and also knows that if the technology lasts ten years, he can write off his costs in ten years. It is also easier to attack old technology than new technology. You also know that the innovations happen quickly. The calculation rate doubles every eighteen months. The costs of keeping new cards compatible, currently €800,000 charged by Fedict, the federal government agency for ICT, will also be multiplied.

As colleague Rutten quoted from the report, the minister’s employee in the committee was able to say that there will be no different versions mixed up once the old five-year cards are phased out. That is another confirmation of the technological halt: not for ten years, but long afterwards, the same versions continue to roll out year after year. We will just stop doing things and stop innovating with new technologies: no more new types of maps, no more innovations, no better service. That is the core of the story.

The eID, that piece of plastic with chip, is no longer comparable to the old paper identity card. This is a piece of technology, a secure key to an e-gov platform and soon also an e-health platform, and a whole range of private services. There can be more and more systematically.

These are new technologies, new services that make our lives easier and thus also save a lot of burdens. Do we really want to stop this innovation? Do we really want to continue working with old technology for ten years? After all, don’t be mistaken because this is a chip on which software can be rotated. This is actually a full-fledged PC. Who in this Room would still want to continue working with a technology ten years old? I challenge you to find someone like that. I do not think that this is the case.

Let us not stop this innovation. Let us continue to innovate and keep the transition time for new technology short enough to make our lives ever simpler and easier, and to realize savings through better and more efficient service.

In summary, I can say that we will support the adjustments for 12-year-olds and 75-year-olds, but we refuse to join in a short-sighted, populist story of an apparent burden reduction that mortgages a further structural burden reduction in the longer term and does not prove to be so beneficial at all.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. On the one hand, it will allow to extend, as has already been said several times since the beginning of the debates, the validity of electronic cards from five to ten years. I would like to point out here – this is important – that this only applies to cards that cover only an unlimited stay. The text does not cover cards that cover a limited-term residence permit. On the other hand, it allows the government to modulate the validity of these cards according to the holder’s age.

With regard to the extension of the validity period of the electronic card, this initiative has a certain appeal as there will be a substantial difference for the citizens’ wallet, ensuring that it does not have to bear the cost of the card once every five years but once every ten years. You may tell me that this is not an exceptional cost. I believe that the cost of this electronic identity card is greatly minimized. First you need to provide a photo of identity that costs between 4 and 8 euros. Then you have to pay for the document. Often, the municipalities demand the cost of the identity card but also an additional municipal tax, in such a way that, in some municipalities, its cost rises to 20 euros. If you add the travel fees and the identity photo, the change of the identity cards of a three-person family returns to virtually 100 euros. For the family portfolio, today, this expenditure is not as anodine as this.

The bill will also allow to modulate the validity of cards according to the age of holders, mainly for older and younger people. For the vast majority of citizens, the renewal of the identity card is merely a simple formality that, just said, also allows the authorities to adapt the cards to the latest technical innovations.

But things are much less obvious for a very limited category of the population who are physically or mentally incapable of concrete follow-up to the call sent by the municipality as part of the procedure for the renewal of the electronic identity card.

That’s why the bill under consideration aims to allow the government to extend the validity of our elderly’s electronic cards beyond ten years, which – it’s obvious – will greatly facilitate their lives; I think, in particular, of people who are “trapped” in a retirement home.

As for young people, the bill aims to allow the government to reduce the validity of their e-card in order to update certain information faster, such as identity photo. Between the ages of twelve and eighteen, a person’s face tends to change significantly. It is therefore important that data such as the identity photo can be updated faster.

In summary, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies, Ladies, Ladies Ministers, Dear Colleagues, this bill aims to allow for facilitation, administrative simplification for all residents of this country and to reduce costs and administrative burdens for citizens and municipalities. In other words, it truly aims to lighten the burden on citizens and communes and to improve, in general, the issuance of identity cards by truly sticking to the realities of the life of everyone.

It is for all these reasons that my group will support this text which – I want to remind you – had been deposited, in the Senate, by the PS and the VLD.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, the bill that is submitted to us today and which aims to extend the validity period of identity cards has, in our view, several advantages that have been very well described in the report of our colleagues.

First, the proposed amendment aims to ⁇ substantial budget savings, which is appreciable in the current times.

Then, this bill aims to ease the task of the communes that are – the municipalists who are among us know it well – already heavily contributed. This project is undoubtedly a real step forward in terms of administrative simplification.

This approach is therefore fully part of the efforts made to reduce the administrative burden, on the one hand, and reduce the financial burden of citizens, on the other.

In addition, it is possible to provide a special diet for specific age categories, for example, for adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age. We know that at this age, morphology changes and the photo of the ID card must reflect reality. This possibility is envisaged through the intervention of the King and I look forward to it.

Finally, the entry into force is left in the hands of the government. The project expressly stipulates that it will be fixed only when all technological arrangements are taken that can guarantee the security of the system. All guarantees of system reliability and security will therefore be provided before implementation.

For all these reasons, the MR group will support this bill.

The draft law, which is therefore submitted to us, aims to increase the validity of the electronic identity card from five to ten years. This project is not new. We have been talking about it since at least 2009, but due to technical obstacles, this parliament has not had the opportunity to work on this project until now.

I have clearly identified the benefits underlying this text in terms of reducing costs and administrative burdens for both municipalities and administrations, but I remain doubtful as to whether this text should be voted in the current situation. In the present case, I am ⁇ of the opinion that, although it permits arrangements by royal decree, the text does not take much into account the changes in the physionomy inherent to certain age categories. In addition, the text does not take much into account the evolution of technology and the potential of new applications, to the point of postponing its entry into force to a time when the technological context will allow to have all the necessary guarantees.

An identity card must allow the citizen to identify himself without the slightest doubt about his identity. The electronic identity card is much more than just an identity document. In Belgium, it is increasingly used as a secure means of identification in an electronic environment. The electronic identity card is an essential key for a secure e-government. More and more public services are developing an online service that gives access to privacy-sensitive information such as Tax-on-web or eHealth.

This card allows you to communicate safely on the internet, both with public and private services, but also to engage in all kinds of transactions, because its holder is able to sign contractual type documents electronically. This means that the issues are important.

To perform these operations, the electronic identity card contains an important technological component. Bringing its validity to ten years is like freezing this technology for ten years, which could have a negative impact on the flexibility of the product. Any further developments related to external factors, such as the introduction of a contactless component, new security arrangements or a European obligation to integrate biometric data, will result in significant additional costs due to the early recall of valid identity cards.

Finally, according to the Fedict expert, the fact of extending the validity period of the ID card to ten years also involves security risks, as the period during which attacks can be launched will be extended to ten years and criminal investments can be amortized over ten years instead of five years. Security risks appear to increase exponentially over a longer period of time.

By spacing out card renewal every ten years, we also undermine the social control that occurs when citizens come to renew their identity documents and this is regrettable. The contacts between administrations and administrators are broken.

For all these reasons, unlike my group, I have decided to abstain from voting on this text.