Colombia has a national identity card known as the “cédula de ciudadanía” (Citizenship card) for nationals over 18 years of age. It is historically tied to the right to vote, as it was implemented as the unique and mandatory mean for identifying voters in 1929. Furthermore, in 1961 this document was established as the only valid way of claiming legal identity before the Colombian State.[1] The National Registry Authority (Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil, RENC) is, since the issuing of the current constitution in 1991, in charge of the legal identity of Colombian individuals.[2]

The legislative development of the right to a legal identity in Colombia, however has been scattered and sparse. Although some laws have been passed (Law 43 of 1993, regulating Colombian nationality, or Law 220 of 1995, mandating the inclusion of the blood-type in the national ID card), most of the regulation has consisted of decrees (decree 1010 of 2000, regulating the organization of the RNEC, decree 1260 of 1970, regulating the civil registry of individuals) CONPES documents, which are semi-binding public policy instruments (CONPES 2704 of 1994, 2822 of 1995, 3323 of 2004), and mostly administrative acts such as circulars issued by the RNEC itself, which can be overwritten by the next head of the institution.

Currently there’s an ongoing effort to digitalize both the information on the national identity document (the databases) as well as the document per-se, with the issuing of a digital card. This is a nationwide program, that aims at massifying the digital ID for all Colombian nationals in the near future. Non of it, however, has been advanced through laws, nor has it been democratically discussed as the RNEC assumes that it is within its competence to introduce this modifications to the document. This implies there is no unified and official definition of what digital ID entails in Colombia. No safeguard is in place other than the simultaneous validity of the former version of the document, no human rights impact assessment was carried out before the digitization efforts began and no specific complaint mechanism is available for citizens, other than general purpose legal tools to ensure the protection of basic rights, such as tutela actions (legal remedy). The validity of the former document also implies that there is no provision to guaranty that thee will be equal access to the new digitalized ID document.

The first phase of this “modernization” was completed in 2005 with the digitization of all fingerprint registers, on 2008 the digitization process started for the fingerprints of underage individuals as well.[3] Since September 2022, about half the RENC offices across the country are only issuing the new version of the national ID, which is always accompanied by its digital duplicate.[4] This new version also includes facial biometric information (beyond the simple picture) and it still includes the fingerprints.

There is a national data protection law in Colombia (1581 de 2012) which stipulates that no authorization (i.e. consent) is required to process data related to the Civil Registry. There is, nonetheless, a general principle of limitation of purpose that should be particularly contemplated in regards to biometric data, and is currently being disregarded.

There is currently no litigious action under way, although some decisions from the supreme court have taken the matter into consideration. The most recent example is the a sentence by the constitutional court (number C-133 of 2023, regarding the cancellation of national ID documents) which clearly stipulates that the faculty of determining the national ID documents is reserved to the legislative branch, as it implies the regulation of a fundamental right.

[1]     Fundación Karisma, «La escalada funcional y tecnológica de la cédula de ciudadanía», Digital ID Colombia (blog), 27 de noviembre de 2022, https://digitalid.karisma.org.co/2022/11/27/la-historia-de-la-identificacio-n-en-Colombia/.

[2]     «Constitución política de Colombia» (1991).

[3]     Fundación Karisma, «La escalada funcional y tecnológica de la cédula de ciudadanía».

[4]     Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil, «Cédula de ciudadanía amarilla con hologramas», Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil, accedido 29 de agosto de 2023, https://www.registraduria.gov.co.