A couple of months ago, my wife messaged me that there was this representative from Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) going house-to-house supposedly for the national ID, but she refused to provide our details because the person was rude and couldn’t answer her questions on the data collection process and then just walked out. I would’ve done the same if I was home, even if it seems we’re now getting used to scanning QR codes, filling up forms or signing up online for contact tracing, medical waiver, and vaccine profiling, we still need to be careful and should be concerned about our data protection and privacy.
But turned out it was indeed a legitimate registration activity recently conducted by PSA in compliance with Republic Act No. 11055, or the Philippine Identification System Act, signed into law on August 6, 2018. PSA personnel went house-to-house amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s the first step of the registration process after which an Application Reference Number (ARN) and/or QR code will be issued as a requirement for the next step. Around 27 million people have reportedly completed this demographic data collection activity. Mind you this was during the time the NCR was placed under ECQ/MECQ. Probably the reason why the online portal was perhaps rushed on its pilot run.
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