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Andrew's avatar

I'm in Korea. I can be asked to show my card by police anytime, no reason required. It's never happened to me. But in Japan, with the same rules, foreigners are asked, just waiting for a subway. Things I'll note: you can't open a bank account without one (and one account is registered with the government to do foreign exchange), you can't get a job without one, hard to get a phone number without one (and only one cell phone number per foreigner allowed). You must register your address, it's on the back, and if moving, register the change within two weeks. Also big difference (in Korea, China, Japan), there's an immigration control on exiting the country - if you overstay a visa, you'll get trapped inside unless you paid the fine $100 per day of overstaying, and risk a ban on reentry.

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