The national e-Government and eHealthcare programs generally associated with the region are in full swing in South East Asia, in countries including China, Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, Korea and Japan.
For example, Taiwan has completed deployment within the framework of its “Disease Management Program”, a namesake of the French ‘Dossier Médical Personnel’ (DMP). Since July 2002, 24 million cards have been issued since July 2002 and 150,000 healthcare professionals are signed up with the system.
In the People’s Republic of China, the ‘social protection’ scheme was launched in 1999 (the Golden Insurance project). The card manages professional relationships, and both employers and employees are issued with a card that contains all information relative to work contracts, salaries, professional qualifications and unemployment. The objective is to turn this into a national card. An e-Government platform forecast for 2010 will enable the integration of authentication, reimbursement of medical costs and access to online public services onto this card.
Indeed, since 1999, the Ministry for Public Safety has been compiling a national population registry. Since 2005, it has been distributing second-generation ID cards (contactless, micro-processor cards for biometric identification) including a digital photograph, stored in a national database. Deployment of these cards should be completed by 2009 with 900 million issued. China holds the record for the greatest number of e-ID cards with over 400 million issued since 2005.
e-Government services should be in place after this phase, although the primary objective in the short term is not access to this kind of service.