New "Controversial" ID Cards In September

The Citizens’ Protection Ministry announced that it is proceeding with the scheme by the (George Papandreou government) to issue new identification cards later this year. The credit card-type cards will replace existing IDs and will also be available to Greeks living abroad via embassies

Features of new ID cards (as announced):

• They will be the same for all Greek citizens, whether they live in Greece or abroad.
• They will be bilingual in accordance to Regulation (EC) 2252/2004 of the European Union.
• All information including the card number, name, surname, father's name, sex, nationality, date and place of birth, photograph, and the blood group of the holder will be digitalized.

It is worth noting that all ID cards will be valid until their replacement by the new ones.

Citizens are very skeptical about the cards and in 2011 tens of thousands of Greeks held protests on this throughout Greece.

Reports at the time stated that the new ID cards will contain microchips that will have information on taxes, the history of appeals to state bodies and other personal information.

This is obviously a direct violation of human rights, because the beholder of the card is not permitted to know what the card contains. Luckily this last amendment goes against the Greek constitution and therefore cannot be enforced... but nonetheless it is worrisome and is giving citizens who oppose the cards a good reason to be afraid.

Another reason citizens oppose the card is because they claim it fulfills prophecy of the Apocalypse since their code included on the cards are the numbers 666, as known these numbers are directly associated with Lucifer and Satanism. Citizens claim that this is too suspicious, since the creators of the cards could of used millions of other number sequences, why use the numbers associated with Satanism?

On their part, the clergy, that joined thousands of marchers in the Greek capital, said that the new identity cards offer too much information about citizens, and suspect that they are designed to do so, to make it easier for the state to wield control over the people