The new card, which looks like a credit card with a photo of the owner in front, contains a wealth of personal data about the owner on a micro-chip, allowing residents to check how much money they have in various public service funds and see what government services they are entitled to by inserting the card in ATM-like devices installed at 1,630 agencies around the city.

To begin with, the card will gradually replace the current magnetic medical insurance card most city residents use. The old cards will be phased out of use during the first few months of 2002.

Both cards can be used to pay medical bills with funds drawn from public medical insurance accounts, but the new card will help prevent fraud, according to government officials.

"The current magnetic cards carry limited information about the owner. For example, there is no photo of the owner. This has led to the problem of some people using others' magnetic cards to pay their medical bills," said Sun Jianping, director of the local bureau that issues social security cards.

Sun said the city has already delivered 5.85 million cards to Shanghai citizens, and the cards have been used in 1.16 million medical bill payments.

The city eventually plans to issue cards to every local resident who uses Shang-hai's social security system, including some foreigners working in the city.

The new cards will cut down bureau-cracy by providing one piece of identifica-tion for all government services, including worker's compensation, unemployment insurance and residence permits.

In the past, local residents needed several documents, including their residence permit, a letter from their employer, and a marriage certificate, just to merge their public housing fund with a new spouse's.

"The card is not only convenient, it also tells citizens whether they have received their deserved benefits according to national and city policies. The card gives them the right to know," said Sun.

In the past, anyone wanting to know how much money they had in their public housing or medical insurance fund had to talk directly with government officials, a time-consuming task.

The local government has invested 100 million yuan (US$12.05 million) to build its new social security system, the first of its kind in China. The government developed a shared database and a plat-form to exchange data among computer systems at each civil service department.

The new database has already proven helpful, as the city's Public Security Bureau discovered that 28,000 identity numbers had been duplicated in the city. The errors have been remedied.

It has also set up an information center and opened a 24-hour hotline, 962222, to answer any questions residents have about the cards.

Local residents will be asked to pay 25 yuan for their cards, about half of the cost the government paid to produce them.

(eastday.com December 31, 2001)