Government plans revolutionary changes to ubiquitous ‘rodné číslo’

The new government is preparing a minor revolution in an area of life that deeply affects every one of the country’s 10 million citizens, and even its foreign residents too: their so-called birth number. The clever 10-digit number is a person’s life in a nutshell, but the problem is, it can also be abused.

Photo: Barbora Němcová, Radio Prague International

Anyone who’s had any contact with the Czech authorities knows the first thing a Czech clerk wants to know is your rodné číslo, literally your ‘birth number’. This unique number is assigned to all babies at birth by the Czech Statistics Office; it’s even given to foreign residents, and accompanies you from the cradle to the grave. Without it, obtaining an identity card, driving licence, health insurance card and so on is nigh on impossible.

The rodné číslo has been in use since 1947, but as the Czech daily Mladá Fronta Dnes reports, the new centre-right government has unveiled plans to overhaul it. The problem with the rodné číslo is that unlike many other European countries, it gives too much information. The first six digits of the number are the holder’s year, month, and date of birth; the number also tells you whether the person is male or female. The last four digits are to avoid duplication for people born on the same day.

Zdeněk Zajíček

Armed with this information, says data protection expert and deputy Finance Minister Zdeněk Zajíček, corrupt officials or cyber criminals can access a host of confidential information stored online, including medical records and bank accounts. The rodné číslo, says Mr Zajíček, has in short become ‘a security risk.’ He’s spearheading reform of the system that should see the rodné číslo eliminated altogether within 30 years.

The first step in this reform process will be to limit the use of the rodné číslo in official databases – in many cases it will be replaced by randomly generated substitutes; i.e. numbers that don’t provide a key to unlock that person’s identity. That process will be gradual, taking many years – the state is obviously keen to avoid a situation whereby someone would be unable to draw his pension because of a clerical error. The rodné číslo should disappear completely around the time of its 100th anniversary.