The second-generation ID card, which bears the holder's personal information, cannot be duplicated, as the process of decryption of its chip information could take as much as 10 million years, a spokesman for the Shenzhen public security bureau said Wednesday.

Such security ensures against the misuse of the cardholder's information, even if the ID card is lost.

The new ID card, first launched in Shenzhen in early 2004, has adopted many new technologies. It shows the citizen's identification information on the card, with the same information stored in an embedded chip. The embedded information can only be read on a special card reader.

So far many organizations in Shenzhen have installed these readers, including the labor and social security bureau, banks, telecom operators, customs, and the airport.

The use of the readers is strictly regulated, and the machines can only be produced by 10 authorized manufacturers in China, which further prevents information leakage, the spokesman said.

When an ID card is put in the machine, a small device similar to a notebook PC, the information displayed on the card can be seen on the machine's screen. If a fake card is used, no information is visible.

"Only the public security bureau has the technology to write such information into chips. That is why we have found very little faking of the new cards," the spokesman said. "In the past, we received numerous complaints about the illegal use of people's ID cards, as no information was embedded and it was hard to tell faked cards."

Shenzhen is among the first five Chinese cities to trial second-generation ID cards. By Wednesday, more than 1.43 million citizens had received new ID cards, or 96 percent of the city's permanent population aged above 16. This has made Shenzhen the first city in China to have somewhat completed the replacement of first-generation ID cards.

Editor: Yan