Over the years, uses of National Identity (NID) card have increased significantly in case of availing different services and completing financial transactions in the country. At the same time, some undue irritants are also there mainly due to lack of clear and flexible guideline on uses of the NIDs. In many cases, service providers go rigid on the uses of NIDs of the service receivers and thus make the matter irritating.
The core idea behind the use of NID to deliver any service is to check any irregularity or fraudulence and also ensure the genuineness of the service receiver. As NID is a very important document, it is not always possible to carry due to risk of loss or theft. That's why a photocopy of NID is acceptable. Nevertheless, some service providers sometimes demand the original NID beside the photocopy. This makes things unnecessarily complex. True, fake NID is a problem. The government has, however, introduced online NID verification system to curb the use of fake NID and it eliminates the requirement of showing original NID in most of the cases.
Again, to ensure identify and avail a contact of any person, a valid photo ID is good enough. Passports, driving licences, official ID cards and government issued ID cards like accreditation cards for journalists are such valid photo IDs and should be alternative to NID in this regard. Like NID, original passport cannot be carried all the time. So, sometimes people carry photocopy of passport data page containing detailed information with photo and even NID number of the passport holder.
Working people generally carry their official photo ID cards that contain their names, addresses and contacts. Government officials and employees have their official photo IDs. Again, in some cases, the government issues temporary photo IDs with expiry dates. All these can be use alternatively to get access and receive most of the services.
But over-compliance of NID by some institutions ultimately delays the service delivery and creates undue hassles. Banks especially state-owned ones are probably the best example. There is a regulation that if any one goes to any bank branch to deposit cash or encash cheque, he or she has to submit or attach a copy of photo ID preferably NID provided that he or she doesn't have any account with the bank. Now, different bank branches refuse to accept photo IDs other than NID. Even some banks refuses to accept very small amount of deposit to other's account without a copy of NID. A few banks go further and ask the depositors to fill up a so-called KYC (know your customer) forms even on submission of copies of NID.
This kind of over-compliance indicates inefficiency of service providers and also the regulators. Being the regulator of banks and financial institutions, the Bangladesh Bank needs to pay attention to this and make the rules of using photo ID prudent. It needs to instruct the banks without any ambiguity to accept any valid photo ID in regular transactions. It may also set a flexible limit of transaction amount without any photo ID.
Moreover, different offices may include the NID numbers of their employees in their official photo ID cards. It is time to think comprehensively about flexible uses of valid photo ID so that people can find it really useful.
