BC Services Card is secure: government
Posted February 15, 2013 6:03 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The provincial government promises a new ID card released today is completely safe to use.
The BC Services Card combines your driver’s license and care card but no data will actually be stored directly on the card.
Just as a health care provider would not have access to your driving record, police will not have access to your health records.
“There’s no intent for us to have all these different databases linked and in fact we’re not allowed to do it, so unless legislation was changed, which we would never do, these databases will stay where they are,” explains Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid.
The new card will be a secure piece of photo identification with many anti-fraud and security features including secure design, an expiry date, and enhanced features which will help to protect citizens’ personal information, according to MacDiarmid.
“What it does have is a chip, it has the ability for you to securely identify yourself so that in the future you could access government services online if you wanted to,” says MacDiarmid.
After you enrol, you’ll be mailed a new card; you’ll have to re-enrol every five years just as you do with your driver’s license.
“We have been engaging with the information and privacy commissioner on this program for more than two years and I am pleased that she agrees from a privacy and security point of view, we’re ready to offer the BC Services Card to citizens,” adds Minister of Citizens’ Services Ben Stewart.
One issue still remains; if you have an Enhanced Driver’s License, you cannot combine your cards because there’s already a chip embedded into that one and cards can not have two chips.
The card does not cost any more than your regular driver’s license.
