The United Nations defines civil registration as the continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events pertaining to the population as provided through decree or regulation in accordance with the legal requirements of a country.
In most countries, a government registration office is the depository of the particulars of certain vital events, such as births, marriages and deaths of its citizens and residents that take place within its jurisdiction. Which vital events are recorded on the register of each jurisdiction may vary, and may include live birth, death, foetal death, name, change of name, marriage, divorce, annulment of marriage, judicial separation of marriage, adoption, legitimization and recognition. A family register is a type of civil register which is more concerned with events within the family unit and is common in some Continental European such as Germany (Familienbuch), France, Spain, and in Asian countries, such as China (Hukou), Japan (Koseki), and North and South Korea (Hoju).
The relevant government registration office may be referred to in each jurisdiction by various names, such as civil registry, civil register (but this is also an official term for an individual file of a vital event), vital records, and other terms, and the office responsible for receiving the registrations can be called a bureau of vital statistics, registry of vital records and statistics, registrar, registry, register, registry office (officially register office), or population registry.
On application, the government office will prepare legal documents (usually called a certificate) that can be used to establish relevant facts and used to protect various rights of individuals. Another purpose is to create a data source for the compilation of vital statistics. However, the accuracy of the information on the certificates is entirely based on the information that had been disclosed to the government office during the registration stage. The most common legal documents that may be issued by the registration office are birth certificates, death certificates, and marriage certificates.
The United Nations General Assembly in 1979 adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Article 16 of which requires countries to establish compulsory civil registration of marriages. Most countries have a legal requirement for a relevant authority to be notified of certain life events, such as births, marriages and deaths.
Civil registration is carried out primarily for the purpose of establishing the legal documents required by law. These records are also a main source of vital statistics. Complete coverage, accuracy and timelines of civil registration are essential to ensure the quality of vital statistics."
Additionally, in some countries, immigration, emigration, and any change of residence may require notification. A register of residents is a type of civil register primarily concerned with the current residence.
History The first country to establish a nationwide population register was France in 1539, using the registers of the Catholic Church. Sweden followed in 1631, on the basis of a register drawn up by the Church of Sweden on behalf of the Swedish king.
Challenges Civil registration is faced with many challenges, both on the demand side and supply side, especially in low-income countries. The demand-side challenges include a lack of awareness of the need for and importance of registration of vital events, and the situation is not helped by the many existing barriers to registration. For example, in 2009, the World Health Statistics Quarterly of the World Health Organization estimated that only about 1% of the estimated deaths in low-income groups are reported and just about 9% in lower-middle-income groups.
The registration systems in many cases are very difficult, causing potential barriers to accessing the registration. Furthermore, in certain societies, due to stigmatisation based on cultural and religious settings, single mothers may fear questions of paternity during notification through chief or community agents.
On the supply side, challenges often involve different, and often conflicting, legal frameworks various stakeholders (health institution, civil registry, statistics agency), and as a result, many countries with "burdensome procedures and non-standardized systems across a country, leading to confusion regarding what individuals need to do or present." Other challenges include accessibility of remote areas and also irregular migration caused by civil conflicts and porous borders.
Innovations There have been new developments in civil registration across the globe over the years. With the advent of enhanced and information and communication technology, civil registration has been moving from a paper-intensive, manual-based civil registration to more automated and digitalised systems. Some of the innovations implemented in civil registration include the use of e-birth notification systems, whereby the health officials are able to notify the national population registration system with new births. This system improves registration process by timely feeding the system with information as soon as a birth occurs. Another innovation, such as that implemented by iCivil Africa in Burkina Faso, is the use of a mobile application to register newborns.
Family register A family register is a civil registry used in many countries to track information of a genealogical or family-centric legal interest. Other terms are household register and family album. The system is called hojeok in South Korea and koseki in Japan, Familienbuch in Germany, hukou in China, hộ khẩu in Vietnam. And (formerly), Bianhu in China and propiska in the Soviet Union.
Often, official recognition of certain events or status may be granted only when such event or status is registered in the family registry—for example, in Japan, a marriage is legally effective when and only when such filing is recorded into the household register (known as a koseki). In other cases, the family register serves as a centralized repository for family legal events, such as births, deaths, marriages, and expatriations, as with the Familienbuch in use in Germany and the in France, although it is not the sole source of official recognition for such events.
Use of government-sanctioned or administered family registers, while common in some European nations and in some countries which use continental-style civil law (where the family or household is legally viewed as the fundamental unit of a nation), is nonetheless rare in English-speaking countries (for example, the closest equivalent in the United Kingdom is the electoral roll, which is organised by address, but it is limited in the amount of information recorded).
Although the United States for example assigns most citizens and residents a Social Security number intended to be unique to the recipient and information regarding birth, death and work history (in the form of contributions to the Social Security system) is collected, the U.S. Social Security Administration has long been intentionally restricted in the scope of information collected and maintained regarding individuals where not directly related to Social Security benefits—as such, no information is centrally collected regarding marriage, citizenship status, parentage, or the like, in contrast to the German and Japanese family register systems.
Establishment of a more comprehensive personal information repository (along the lines of the Japanese or former German systems) has been criticized by civil liberties advocates as subject to governmental or criminal abuse, while proponents cite the benefits of simplified access to vital information.
In South Korea, use of the hojeok (similar to the Japanese household registry, written using identical Chinese characters) was repealed in 2005, in favor of a personal registry system.
The systems of household registers in China, Korea and Japan date back to the Tang dynasty or Heian period or earlier, both since the seventh century.
List of household register systems
East Asia The Hukou system (), also known as Huji () system, in China. The Koseki system () in Japan. The former Hoju system in North Korea. Hoju () means the 'head of the family', Hojuje () is the 'head of the family' system, and Hojeok (alternate romanization: Hojok; 호적, 戶籍) is the 'family register'. The former Hoju system in South Korea attracted controversy for being innately patriarchal and hence representing a 'violation of the right to gender equality'. It was abolished on 1 January 2008 and replaced with the Family Relations Register system (). The Household registration system (, Mandarin: Hùjí, Hokkien: Hō͘-che̍k, Hakka: Fu-sit) in Taiwan.
South East Asia Vietnam: The , based on the Chinese hukou Thailand: The (), or document proving House Registration, is distributed by a village, city, or other municipal authority. The Tabien Baan (sometimes spelled Tambien Baan) reflects the residents who live at a specific property (this document is not used as proof of Real Estate ownership, for that one must have a Thai Chanote or Title Deed). The Tabien Baan (House Registration) is issued to Thai Citizens and is used as a permanent address for service of process and other official mailings. A Tabien Baan is an extremely important document for Thai nationals because it acts as proof of a Thai person's residence. Therefore, it is used to determine a Thai person's voting district and in the case of Thai men of military age, the Tabien Baan is used to ascertain what district the Thai man will be placed in when drawing for the military draft. This can be critical because if one district reaches a certain level of volunteers then it is not necessary to further draft any inhabitants of that district. As a result, a Thai man's House Registration (Tabien Baan) can have a massive impact upon their life and career depending upon the district in which they live. Indonesia: (literally 'family card') is a document in Indonesia that proves residency and which records relationships and family members. Every family in Indonesia is required to own one of these documents. Despite its name, the document is technically a document paper (instead of a card) and large in size. This document records the identity of the family's head and the individual members. The document is kept by the family's head, ketua RT (head of neighborhood association) and desa or kelurahan office. The document is a provincial government document, thus, it is not permitted to strike out, change, replace or make additions in the document. Every data change has to be reported to the village or kelurahan office which will replace the old one with the updated one. Newcomers are not recorded in the document until they have been reported or have been deemed not to have local residency status. Changes in data have to be reported within 14 working days by the family's head to desa or kelurahan office. Each report of changes must be submitted with the copy that is held by the family's head and ketua RT. Changes in data include: birth, death or migration (of a member). However, if a family moves to different desa or kelurahan, the document must be revoked by desa or kelurahan office, which must be submitted with the copy that held by family's head and ketua RT. The official in the prior location will produce Surat Keterangan Pindah (Note of Migration) which will be used to make the new Kartu Keluarga in the arrival by desa or kelurahan office.
Continental Europe The former Familienbuch system in Germany. The system in France. The anagrafe [it] system in Italy. The former system in Spain. The former Propiska system in Russia. The Swedish Population Register.
Africa Namibia