Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta – Poor coordination among government agencies, a lack of security features and systemic corruption makes it all too easy for criminals to get hold of multiple identity cards, a Home Ministry official says.

Director general for demographic administration Abdul Rasyid acknowledged Wednesday that criminals were exploiting the weaknesses in the system, creating fake IDs to facilitate crimes of corruption, terrorism and human trafficking.

Saleh told a hearing of House of Representatives legislators there was not much he could do to fix the problem until the single identification number system being deliberated by the House was made policy.

"Only with the law can we control the issue of ID cards," he said in response to a question from Latifah Iskandar, who chairs the special committee deliberating the human trafficking bill.

Quoting a report by non-governmental organization, Latifah said criminals frequently used fake ID cards in human trafficking cases.

Rasyid said with more than 6,000 offices issuing ID cards throughout the country, it was easy for criminals to obtain "as many cards as they wished". "I say that producing ID cards is as easy as creating parking tickets. Anyone can do it" he said.

The absence of a national standard and security features made it easy for even small firms to print the cards he said. Many businesses were selling identity cards on demand, Rasyid said. When he had ordered several firms – one a used-car dealership – to stop producing the cards, three of them had taken legal action against him, Rasyid said.

Rasyid also said he was threatened on a daily basis when trying to regulate the business. "I have brought this to the attention of the (Home) Minister (M. Ma'ruf) and the Vice President (Jusuf Kalla)," he said.

The government is preparing a new administrative system that will provide each citizen with a single identification number for life.