Amendments to the Population Register Law, which the Saeima approved in the first reading on Thursday, 17 September, anticipate that as of 2017 a new type of personal identification number will be issued that will not include the birth-date. 

The amendments also provide that as of 1 January 2017 people will be able to request the Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs to change their previously issued personal ID numbers in which the first six digits denote their date of birth to the new type of ID number. This will be done free of charge. 

Currently personal ID numbers consist of eleven digits of which the first six denote the person’s date of birth and the seventh indicates the century of birth, with “0” standing for the 19^th century, “1” for the 20^th and “2” for the 21^st. The new type of ID numbers will have the same number of digits. 

The authors of the amendments point out that personal data protection principles require different ways of identifying a natural person to be developed, for example, by using registration or identification numbers that do not contain the date of birth. 

The amendments to the Population Register Law still have to undergo a second and third reading in the Saeima.  

Saeima Press Service