Why the Malaysian MyKad is useless.

Few years ago I decided to embed my driving license into my Malaysian identity card, MyKad. I thought, "Hey, this will be convenient, no longer will I have carry another card around with me."

So I went to renew my MyKad, and I told the kind lady to insert details of my driving license into MyKad. She took both my driving license, and MyKad, did the necessary punching into her sophisticated desktop, and returned the MyKad to me.

I left the Putrajaya National Registration Office with a combination of pride (that I'm one of the people who utilised the 'smart' function of MyKad), and relief (from now on, all I need is one card, MyKad).

Fast forward few years, few weeks ago I suddenly remembered that my driving license expires in 2007. The problem is, I do not know when exactly it expires, because now I have a 'virtual driving license', and I don't have anyway to tell, unless I have a MyKad reader. Come to think about it, I don't even know whether a MyKad reader can do that. So I went to the JPJ website, and to my relief and despair, I found out that I could check the expiry date of my Malaysian driving license online, and that my driving license has expired in January 2007.

What the hey. Do they expect people to remember the dates without any concrete dates anywhere? I know, I could have jotted it down somewhere, but.... urg!!

Anyhow, I went to the JPJ office in PJ to renew my driving license, and was told that although my driving license is now embedded into my MyKad, it is still necessary for me to have the PHYSICAL DRIVING LICENSE for renewal purposes. I told the guy at the JPJ counter, "Bang, orang tu tak bagi balik lah".

His reply to me,"Macam mana dia tak bagi balik. Kalau macam tu, sekarang cik kena bayar RM20 sebagai bayaran hilang lesen.".

First thought is, wtf, I didn't lose the license, the woman did not give it back to me when I embedded the damn thing, why should I pay for it.

But being a Malaysian, I just accepted that I needed to pay for it, and just took out my 20 bucks from my wallet.

Then suddenly...

Man at counter: Cik juga kena bawak gambar baru ya, untuk dapatkan lesen yang baru.

Ni yang aku mengamuk ni...

WTF!!! The hassle!!!! Now I'm angry! You want me to pay, fine! The mechanical movement involved is just me taking out my wallet, and removing the money out. NOW YOU WANT ME TO PUT ON MY MAKEUP, WASH MY HAIR, DRIVE DOWN TO A PHOTO SHOP, TAKE A PHOTO, PAY MONEY TO THE GUY, COLLECT THE PHOTO, AND DRIVE BACK TO JPJ TO RENEW MY BLOODY LICENSE? And it's not even my fault!

Crap man. I was really angry, and I really didn't understand what's the point of embedding the driving license in our 'smart' MyKad when you still need the physical license after that. There's seriously some coordination issue between our National Registration Center and JPJ. What a waste of resources. What a waste of a smartcard. What a waste of our effort to embed our driving license in. What a waste of those JPJ staff embedding the driving license into our MyKads. What a waste of taxpayers money.

Well, in the end, being brought up the way we did in Malaysia, I did what was necessary (took photo, paid lesen hilang fine), and finally got my license renewed. What to do. Takkan complain complain meh. Like anyone's gonna take any bloody action.

Ok now this post is not fully negative. I must say that the service in JPJ PJ office is fast. I got my driving license renewed in less than 10 minutes, including the time spent filling forms. Well, at least not all is bad.

But back to the topic, is there any use for the so called 'smartcard' that is our MyKad? What's so smart about it when you cannot do anything with it?