The first day of the online registration for the National ID was marred by “technical difficulties” as over 40,000 requests swamped the website of the Philippine Statistics Authority within the first minutes of the launch.
“We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the downtime of the pilot launch of the PhilSys online Step 1 Registration website earlier today. This caused delays in the sending of the one time passwords (OTPs) necessary to proceed with the registration,” the PSA said in a statement.
“We will provide updates as soon as the website is up and running. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused,” it added.
The online system will collect the demographic information of applicants for the National ID.
These include the name, gender, birthplace and birth date, blood type, address, citizenship, marital status, mobile phone number, and email address of targeted registrants.
Step 2, on the other hand, entails the capture of biometric information such as iris scan, fingerprints, and photograph at the PhilSys registration centers.
The last step is the issuance of the PhilSys number and the distribution of the physical ID.
President Rodrigo Duterte signed National ID law in 2018 to harmonize and integrate government IDs.