GUA MUSANG – The National Registration Department (JPN) has assured the public that strict safeguards are in place to prevent MyKad from being issued to unauthorised individuals.
JPN director-general Datuk Badrul Hisham Alias said the department had not encountered any case of its staff deliberately issuing valid identity cards to unauthorised individuals since MyKad was introduced more than 25 years ago.
He said the MyKad issuance process was subject to stringent security checks and quality controls to ensure that damaged cards were not issued to applicants.
"Cards damaged during production are also audited according to their serial numbers to ensure that every unit can be identified and is not replaced arbitrarily," he told Bernama.
He was speaking when asked about the integrity of the MyKad issuance process during a registration literacy programme held in conjunction with the 78th Kelantan State-Level National Registration Day celebration at Pos Balar.
Badrul Hisham said the MyKad production system complied with ISO standards, while its security features had been enhanced to reduce the risk of forgery.
He said attempts to imitate a genuine MyKad could produce a similar-looking card but would not replicate the original's specific security features.
On public concerns about the durability of the new MyKad, he said the card was still made of polycarbonate, but its technology and security features had been upgraded.
He said chip failure was not necessarily caused by manufacturing defects, as it could also result from how users handled or stored their cards.
These included leaving cards in washing machines, rubbing them with erasers or exposing them to sunlight.
Badrul Hisham also said the design, colour and information displayed on the MyKad were prescribed by law and could not be changed to suit individual preferences.
He clarified that the change in the MyKad's blue colour tone was purely for design purposes and carried no specific meaning.
Introduced last June, the new MyKad comes with 53 security features, compared with 23 in the previous version.
These include laser engraving, ultraviolet elements, holograms, guilloche patterns, microtext, Quick Response (QR) codes for enforcement purposes and a chip with enhanced encryption. –BERNAMA