AG Report: Weakness, lack of coordination in NRD Identity data systems management

Auditor General Department. Photo courtesy of AG Facebook.

PUTRAJAYA, SEPT 29 – The Auditor-General’s Report 2019 Series 2 released today reported that there were weaknesses and a lack of coordination in the National Registration Department’s identity data systems management.

Information classified as mandatory in the documentation processing were not properly entered into the data systems, resulting in citizenships accorded to 580 registered births but without the details of the processes involved, while 59,946 identity cards had birth dates that did not match the six-digit birthdate combination in their IC number, the Report said

While the overall management of identification documents at the National Registration Department (NRD) is satisfactory, with the registration and issuing of identity cards for Malaysians managed in line with the set regulations, there has been a lapse in the monitoring of the mandatory steps to be taken for the documentation processing system, the Report said.

The audit of the government department found that there was no integration between the main module and sub module for the Identification Data.

There was no proper monitoring and coordination of citizenship data in the iJPN System and ePP system and as a result the approval of citizenship application in the iJPN system could not be verified by the ePP system.

There is no existing Standard Operating Procedure for the review and updating of data, and with this the data stored in the iJPN system can become unreliable and without integrity resulting in risks for the NRD database, the Report said.

Among others, information on the marriage status for 84 individuals from 63,272 individuals who obtained citizenship approvals under Item 15 (1) PP was not updated in the iJPN system. Other information not updated in the system included approval status related to citizenship applications, results of security screening by police related to applications.

The Report also said there were systems disruptions where records could not be updated in the main database. As a result, “there were transactions involving User IDs who were found to be active even though the validity of their ID had transpired or they had retired.”

There were also discrepancies in citizenship information of 242 individuals, where their identity card data indicated them as citizens but in their birth certificates, their citizenship status was either not citizen or “Belum Ditentukan” or yet to be ascertained.

–WE