Interior ministry clears legal path for eight mobile IDs starting Friday

The interior ministry said Thursday it will begin enforcing a revised decree on Friday that legally recognizes eight types of mobile identification cards.

Under the new rules, national ID cards, driver's licenses, disability registration cards, veteran registration cards, alien registration cards, permanent resident cards, domestic residence reports for overseas Koreans and government employee IDs will all carry formal legal status.

To ensure reliability, the decree requires issuing agencies to limit distribution to one smartphone per person and verify the applicant's identity before activation. Agencies must also encrypt personal data with an electronic validity period of no more than three years and maintain the accuracy of stored information. Any issuance or cancellation of a mobile ID must be reported to the ministry through a shared digital infrastructure.

Hwang Gyu-cheol, head of the ministry's AI government office, said the revision clarifies which mobile IDs citizens can use without hesitation and concretizes the safety measures agencies must follow. He added that the government plans to continuously expand this secure digital identity system.