Currently

Let’s take a look at some of the many national identification systems currently in use.

Argentina

In Argentina, there is a nationally issued identification number called the DNI, Documento Nacional de Identidad. It is of the form AA-BBBBBBBB-C, where:

AA is 20 or 23 for men, or 27 for women
BBBBBBBB is a number not related to anything in particular, except it is always over 92,000,000 for immigrants
C is a control digit

Bahrain

In Bahrain every citizen and resident must hold an Identification Card indicating their Personal Number which consists of 8 digits followed by a check digit. In general, it has the following format: YYMMNNNNC, where:

YYMM is the year and month of birth
NNNN is a random number
C is a check digit

Bosnia and Herzegovina

In Bosnia & Herzegovina, each citizen receives a 13-digit number Unique Master Citizen Number at birth. It is of the form DDMMYYY RR XXX C, where:

DDMMYYY is the date of birth
RR indicates one of ten Bosnian regions where the person was born, where:
- 10: Banja Luka
- 11: Bihać
- 12: Doboj
- 13: Goražde
- 14: Livno
- 15: Mostar
- 16: Prijedor
- 17: Sarajevo
- 18: Tuzla
- 19: Zenica
XXX is a unique sequential number in the range 000-499 for males and 500-999 for females
C is a check digit

Chile

In Chile, the National Identification Number is called the RUN, Rol Único Nacional. Since 1990, it has been assigned to children at birth.

The RUN or RUT has 7 or 8 digits (for people alive today; in the past, there were persons with a 5- or 6-digit one) plus a check digit or letter.

China

In China, an ID card is mandatory for all citizens who are over 16 years old. The ID number has 18 digits and is in the format RRRRRRYYYYMMDDSSSC, where:

RRRRRR is a standard code for the administrative division where the card holder is born
YYYYMMDD is their birth date
SSS is a sequential code for distinguishing people with identical birthplaces and birthdates
- SSS is odd for males and even for females
C is a check digit

Indonesia

In Indonesia, each citizen is issued a unique 16 digit number known as a Nomor Induk Kependudukan. The number is given to all Indonesian citizens. The format is PPRRSSDDMMYYXXXX, where:

PP is a two-digit code identifying the province
RR is a two-digit code identifying the city

PP is a two-digit province code, RR is a two-digit regency or city code, SS is a two-digit district code (within a city), DDMMYY is the date of birth, and XXXX is a four-digit random number. 40 is added to DD for females.

Malaysia

In Malaysia, a 12-digit number known as the National Registration Identification Card Number (NRIC No.) is issued to citizens and permanent residents. The number is of the form: YYMMDD-SS-###G, where:

YYMMDD is the date of birth
SS represents the place of birth:
- states (01-13)
- territories (14-16)
- countries (60-85)
##G is a random number, except G is odd for males and even for females

South Africa

In South Africa, an ID number is allocated at the time a birth certificate is generated. An ID number is a 13-digit number containing only numeric characters, with no whitespace, punctuation, or alpha characters. It is defined as YYMMDDSSSSCAZ, where:

YYMMDD represents the date of birth
SSSS is a sequence number registered with the birth date, where:
- Females are assigned sequential numbers starting with 0 to 4
- Males are assigned sequential numbers starting with 5 to 9
C indicates citizenship

A and Z are checksum digits, calculated as follows:

A = the sum of the digits in the ID number in the odd positions
B = the number formed by the concatenation of the digits in the ID number in the even positions
C = the sum of the digits in (2 * B)
D = A + C
Z = 10 - (D mod 10)

This is known as the Luhn algorithm.

United States

In the United States, the Social Security number (SSN) is nine-digit number issued to U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and temporary (working) residents. Its original purpose was to identify individuals for the purposes of Social Security, but it is now also used to track individuals for taxation purposes. An SSN is of the form AAA-BB-CCCC, where all digits are 0-9.

Today, SSNs are assigned randomly, whereas before June 25, 2011, they were issued serially, making it easy to guess a valid SSN.

Proposed

I propose a new format for an International Personal Identification Number (I-PIN). The idea is this:

“Each person’s unique ID is a combination of their country, date of birth and mother’s and father’s birthdays (month and day).”

An I-PIN is of the form CC-YYYYMMDD-MMDD-MMDD, where:

CC is the two-character country code defined by the ISO 3166 alpha-2 standard
YYYYMMDD is the person’s birth date
The first MMDD is the month and date of the person’s mother’s birthdate
The second MMDD is the month and date of the person’s father’s birthdate

Examples are:

US-19650518-0915-0107 (me)
US-19670222-0915-0107 (my sister)
US-19620121-0217-0204 (my wife)
US-19911109-0603-0518 (my older son)
US-19960126-0603-0518 (my younger son)

Benefits

The benefits of this format are:

No identifier is ever assigned by any agency
ID is a recording of specific information about birth (where, when, to whom)
Information used cannot change, by definition (like a name might)
Can easily construct IDs for people living and deceased

Potential issues

Two potential issues have been identified:

Need to account for multiple births (twins, triplets, etc.)
- Can be done by appending a "delivery order" , for example CC-YYYYMMDD-MMDD-MMDD[-N], where [ ] indicates optionality and N indicates birth order
Someone might not know their parent's birthdays
- Can be handled by convention (use person's own birthday as a default)

Collision analysis

A collision occurs when two different people have the same I-PIN. Here is the chance of that happening for all people born in the last 100 years around the world:

Similarly, here is the chance of that happening for all people born in the last 100 years in the United States:

Lastly, here is the chance of that happening for all people born in the last 100 years in China, the world’s most populous country. If any country will produce a duplicate, it would be China:

Questions?

If you have any questions about our proposal, let us know down below!

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