Every Costa Rican citizen must carry an identity card immediately after turning 18. The card is named "Cédula de Identidad" and it is issued by the local registrar's office ("Registro Civil"), an office belonging to the local elections committee ("Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones"), which in Costa Rica has the same rank as the Supreme Court. Each card has a unique number composed of nine numerical digits, the first of them being the province where the citizen was born (with other significance in special cases such as granted citizenship to foreigners, adopted persons, or in rare cases, old people for whom no birth certificate was processed at birth). After this digit, two blocks of four digits follow; the combination corresponds to the unique identifier of the citizen.