A DAP lawmaker has urged the government to review the technology behind the MyKad and investigate allegations against past suppliers of the national identity card.

“It has been alleged that certain politicians and their cronies from the former regime have benefitted enormously from supplying this low-tech and easily cloned MyKad to the government.

“This allegation should be investigated to clear the names of those involved,” Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng said in a statement today.

Contacted by Malaysiakini, Lim said he had received complaints from certain officials, who had raised the issue because the tender for the MyKad supplier would be held in September.

"They (the officers) want the original multipurpose MyKad concept to be implemented," he said.

He was commenting on the card introduced by the National Registration Department (NRD) in 2001 that contains an embedded computer chip.

“The introduction of the card came with much potential.

"There was the intention to make it a multipurpose card with eight different applications for the convenience of the Malaysian citizens.

“Alas, 17 years later, the potential and intention remain as potential and intention,” Lim said.

What the people got, he said, was instead a card with “limited usage beyond serving as an ID card and a touch-and-go card”.

He added there were allegedly many complaints about the chip malfunctioning.

With the significant investment by the administration in e-government over the last 19 years, Lim said, there is a strong need to “re-engineer” the MyKad to be a more advanced identity management system.

“Technology has progressed by leaps and bounds, but our MyKad seems to be stuck in a time warp.

“It is high time we review the functionalities and technology of our MyKad, and demand the supplier to bring it to date with today’s demanding requirements of the connected world and economy at their cost,” he added.