Guidelines on the Legislative Framework for Civil Registration, Vital Statistics and Identity Management Systems

These Guidelines provide overarching principles and elaborate in detail the leg – islative framework critical for implementing international recommendations, with a focus on ensuring a holistic and integrated approach to civil registration, vital sta – tistics and identity management. There is great diversity in how countries organize and structure their civil registration, vital statistics and identity management systems owing to differences in government structures, culture and traditions, and socio – economic conditions. The principles and concepts presented in these Guidelines can, however, be adapted to the culture, traditions and legal systems of all countries, in a manner consistent with existing and chosen structures. Throughout these Guidelines, examples are presented demonstrating how the concepts have been put into practice in countries with diverse cultures, traditions and legal systems. These national practices are presented to provide a starting point for discussion among policymakers on how to adapt the principles and concepts to their own country conditions, rather than being put forward as examples to be copied wholesale by other countries.

These Guidelines recommend and present a framework for integrated systems, where the civil registration system provides input into the vital statistics system and the identity management system, as graphically presented in the figure below. The principles and concepts on civil registration and vital statistics can, however, also be used and followed by countries that lack a national identity management system. Moreover, a country’s systems need not be electronically linked to apply these prin – ciples. The principles can be adopted in countries that maintain manual systems that have not yet been digitized, or where parts of the country do not yet have sufficient computer or Internet resources to digitize in those specific locations.