Citizen Card (Portugal)

The Citizen Card (Portuguese: Cartão de Cidadão) or CC is the new national identity card issued by the Portuguese government to its citizens. The new card was primarily designed to replace the older Bilhete de Identidade (English: Identity Card), which is still in use, and to combine other government documents (including social security documents, the National Health Service card, the taxpayer card and the voter registration card) in one secure card. The CC was introduced by the government of José Sócrates and was first issued in the Azores in mid-2006.

Objectives

The main objective of this document was to reduce the number of identification cards necessary for the citizen to appear before any institutions of the State. THE CC comes equipped with a chip capable of storing personal data encrypted, which according to the Portuguese government guarantees the privacy of the data, for example medical data cannot be read by officials of the financial sector; this is important, in order to avoid excesses use of power in obtaining data and not undermine the privacy of the citizens.