Bye Bye Cédulas

That's right, the government started the year with what I think is a great step forward, getting rid of the Cédulas.

Cédulas are what americans call an ID. They are being replaced with the new DPI (Documento Personal de Identificación). I think in english it would be Personal Identification Document or something like that.

Cédulas have proved to be a pain, they are made with a certain kind of paper that can be damaged very easily. I have had my cédula for only 2 years and hardly ever take it out and the outside its already very damaged. It means that you have to replace it very often. Besides it is very easy to get fake ones.

Every guatemalan or foreign person living in guatemala, registered in RENAP should be able to get their DPI's. This will be the only document for civil, administrative and legal acts, or in any other thing were it is required by law. The new document allows the citizen to identify and gives you the right to vote.

The DPI has several safety methods to avoid duplicity and its made of polycarbonate. It has a chip in it that saves the person's fingerprints and has 3 levels of security.

For every case there will be an Unique Identification Code, this number won't change until the person has died. This code will be the base from which the society and the State identifies a person for all effects. It will be adopted obligatorily and progressively for all the dependences of the State. This number will be joining all the identification systems and public records in a term that must not exceed 5 years from the start of Decree 90-2005.

Hope at least this one does work, or will it be like the adoption decrees, it's true they had much more shorter terms but, they usually are not fullfilled no matter how much time they were granted.

Here is a glimpse of how the DPI will look (I took it from RENAP's webpage... I wonder if it's illegal?...)