Residents in the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) of China will find their daily life much easier with the help of intelligent identification cards as of the first half of 2002.

　　In addition to indicating personal identity, the card can also be used in place of driving license, medical card, border pass andelectronic purse, government sources said.

　　As to the protection of privacy, the SAR government has assuredresidents that the part of data stored by one certain department cannot be retrieved by another.

　　The new cards will fall in two categories, covering more than 380,000 permanent residents and roughly 40,000 non-permanent residents. All Macao residents can receive the cards in four years.