yowkee essential

MyKad, government-backed multi-application SMART card

About two months ago, my wife's handbag was snatched away by 2 motorists (this has become a serious threat to women walking in the streets of KL, it happened e.v.e.r.y.w.h.e.r.e). She had to apply for all losted cards like I/C (Identity Card), driving licenses, all ATM/Credit cards.... We have her I/C applied and two months later, she got her new I/C -- which is our Malaysia's proud chip-enabled I/C MyKad. We have the perception that, since we are going to have both personal information and driving license info stored into the chip of the one and only one card, we should wait for the new I/C and then to apply for the losted driving license.

It turned out that JPJ (Jabatan Pengangkutan Jalan -- Road Transport Department Malaysia) didn't think the same way. We arrived there this afternoon, she got the ticket for queuing up, being instructed to take photo and have her new I/C photostated. What the heck! Why do we need to take photo and photostat a new generation I/C, which supposely having all the info securely stored in a chip? And shouldn't the database have the data already?

With doubt, we still spent the extra money for photo and photostat. Wait patiently and an hour later, we learned that, you could ONLY apply for the lost driving license of the old type, then to apply again to merge the old driving license into your chip-enabled, smart I/C. She got the driving license, and it's almost come to off of office hour, which means, if you want to convert the license, come again next time.

Why the extra process? Isn't it just straight logic you could have I/C and driving license in your MyKad while you're applying for new? What a pain! As a victim, you got a paid leave to apply new I/C, the other leave for driving license, and then some day later you got to merge this together because we have this proud chip-enabled I/C. And we are in process of upgrading all magnetic bank ATM card to chip-enabled bank card. Some days later we got to merge this to I/C, AGAIN. God, when are they going to think INTEGRATION ahead?! Or at least some simplified processes?!