E-card could speed up Bay Area border checks

Tencent Holdings Ltd said it is working on an e-card electronic document system to ease border crossing procedures for people traveling across Guangdong province, Hong Kong and Macao.

According to Tencent, multiple travel documents including identity cards and travel permits could be linked to its WeChat application in future. Users from the Chinese mainland and the two special administrative regions would then be able to scan a code on their smartphones at border checkpoints to travel quickly among Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area cities.

"Border crossing is always regarded as a barrier preventing the free flow of talent in the Bay Area. Tencent hopes to realize mutual digital identity authentication and enable users to move freely with just a mobile phone," said Jim Lai Chi-ming, vice-president of Tencent and dean of Tencent Finance Academy, on Wednesday.

However, the company did not reveal when the service could be put into use, or how far its talks with the authorities have progressed.

"The border crossing part of the e-card program is still in a research stage. The authorities are now considering the feasibility of digital identities according to regulations," said Huang Tingting, senior product manager of Tencent Financial Technology.

Tencent simulated an e-card border crossing scenario at the recent Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Fintech Forum. "We have proposed a simulation scenario and hope to make it happen like that," Huang said.

Lai said the company is currently working with the Ministry of Public Security on mainland residents' digital identity authentication.

Huang confirmed that further details about how the service would work with mainland residents' digital identity cards would be released as early as next month, in the Bay Area first. At that time, users in Bay Area cities will be able to register at building entrances, check into hotels and borrow books from libraries via the e-card system.

For its digital ID service in Hong Kong, Huang said the system would coordinate with the city's Smart City Blueprint as the SAR government will provide an e-ID to local citizens by 2020.

The company said the e-card will never replace physical ID cards, but will complement such purposes for users' convenience. The e-card comprises codes linking to a certain person and can protect users' personal privacy, it added.