In steady steps and with clear-cut vision, EIDA continues its march towards implementing its strategic goals and national mission to achieve the ambitions and aspirations of the country’s wise leadership headed by the President of the UAE,HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and under the continuous support of HH GeneralSheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi andDeputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, EIDA Board Chairman, and the directfollow-up ofHH Lt General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister, EIDA Vice Chairman.
2010-2013 Strategic Plan
EIDA seeks to be the main resource to verify personal identity, provide demographic data, contribute to enhance national and individual security, maintain a comprehensive and accurate population register and provide an integrated package of innovative electronic services aspart of a strategic system and according to inputs that characterize the vision of wise leadership of the country and always guided by the UAE Vision 2021 aiming to place the UAE among the world’s most developed countries.
While the UAE is celebrating its 40thanniversary, seven years have passed since the incorporation of EIDA, which continues its hard work and persistent efforts to implement its mission and objectives through an assemblage of projects and initiatives based on its new strategic plan for 2010-2013. These projects should be beneficial to the UAE as they are closely linked to the electronic transformation process witnessed by the entire country.
The UAE’s experience in developing a population register and national identity card system is considered a distinguished experience at the regional and international level. The advanced international techniques and specifications of the ID card embraced by EIDA place the UAE among the leading countries in implementing the electronic identity project and population register system.
2011: Important Milestone
The year 2011 constituted an important milestone in EIDA’s journey. This year witnessed the manifestation of EIDA’s strategic plan which was described by HH EIDA’s Vice-Chairman as “an ambitious strategy” which derives its persistence from the wise directions of General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and EIDA Chairman to continue the journey of development and modernization based on strategic advanced ideology to achieve the vision of the supreme leadership honestly and sincerely.
EIDA started reaping the fruits of its new strategy as the registration rate across the country reached over 17,000 applicantsper day and the number of new and renewed ID cards printed reached over 22,000 cards per day. These numbers increase EIDA’s belief and confidence in its ability to implement its strategy within a defined timeframe, hence completing the registration of the country’s population before the end of 2013, then moving to the next stage of providing e-government services and building a knowledge-based economy.
Government’s Support
The support of the government for EIDA during 2011 constituted a strong motive for it to move steadily towards achieving its strategy and accelerate the registration process of the country’s population in the population register and identity card. This governmental support for EIDA was represented in the issuance of Ministerial Decree No. 25 of 2011 which was the “road map” to commence the mandatory use of the ID card across the country. The executive councils in all the country’s emirates also played a pivotal role in expanding theuse of the ID card as a condition to obtain services at all government and non-government entities in each emirate.
EIDA in Elections
EIDA played a vital role in the 2011 Federal National Council (FNC) elections held on 24 September 2011 as EIDA participated in the operation, organization and support of this second parliamentary experience which translated the belief of the country’s leadership inenhancing political participation as an inseparable part of national progress and total development.
EIDA’s most significant accomplishment during the elections is adopting the electronic voting process using the digital ID card as well as its pivotal role as a member of the National Election Committee (NEC) and Chairman of NEC’sInfrastructure Committee that was responsible for developing the electronic election system and supervising the readiness of the technical aspects of this advanced system across the country.
Moreover, over 400 EIDA personnel participated in the ongoing preparations for this national event and during the long elections day by managing quick and accurate identification of voters and providing technical support and other administrative and logistical tasks, which contributed to the success of the electoral process in general and the electronic voting process in particular while ensuring transparency and integrity in addition to other benefits such as saving time and speeding up voting.
Nationalization Rate equals 99%
EIDA succeeded in achieving a nationalization rate that was among the highest nationalization rates in the country, i.e. 99% of EIDA’s staff with regard to all positions held by nationals in all EIDA’s departments, sections and centers. The rate reaches97% by counting in the number of employees hired by EIDA through outsourcing companies and on temporary contracts.
EIDA also succeeded in nationalizing all senior positions. All employees working in the registration centers and internal audit offices from managers, supervisors and employees are nationals. Over the last sixteen months, EIDA hired 400 nationals as part of its integrated plan aiming to raise the nationalization rates to be consistent with the supreme directions set out in EIDA’s new strategic plan for 2010-2013.
Initiatives and Projects
EIDA embraced prominent strategic initiatives and projects that have started to take shape this year and which will play a vital role in assisting e-governments in the country to develop a system of services provided to the public and develop the quality and quantity of these services to push the growth and development process and ensure security and prosperity in the country.
Digital Identity
EIDA provided a number of important projects thisyear foremost among which is the activation of digital identity application which EIDA started implementing in 2011. It is one of EIDA’s most prominent strategic projects as it contributes to support e-government initiatives and protects and secures e-transactions on the Internet as well as preventsfalse identities and effectively contributes to enrich the concept of secure e-economy.
Electronic Linking Infrastructure
The initiative of the public key infrastructure (PKI) and identity management project has been launched with the aim of providing many services to facilitate e-transactions in the country at all levels and provide the highest standards of protection and privacy in e-transaction procedures.
The activation of the electronic identity applications using PKI, the unified identity management and the “electronic linking infrastructure” projectshave been successfully launched. In 2011, EIDA started implementing its strategic project “electronic linking infrastructure with the country’s institutions” which aims to provide accurate and updated statistical data to support the country’s leadership in making decisions on the population demography by relying on EIDA’s highly precise and accurate data from its population register.
The electronic linking infrastructure will also provide data on persons whether personal or “biometric” data. The linking infrastructure relies on the principle of structuring the directed services while taking into consideration the latest applications in this field.
The project meets the requirements of the statistical entities in the country with the aim to provide all necessary statistical data to support accurate and central decision making based on statistics from an accurate population register in addition to setting a general idea of all statistical requirements with all strategic dimensions. It is expected that many official entities in the country will make use of the electronic linking process such as the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research and the Ministry of Justice as well as many relevant local and federal entities.
EIDA seeks to implement several other strategic initiatives which are compatiblewith each other to reach an electronic integration consistent with the country’s strategies in this regard. This comes in the wake of asserting electronic transformation at the national level and support it in all its institutions, through the establishment of “e-authentication center” which aims to assert the identification process of the identity of customers of e-services, in addition to launching the card reader program that processes the ID card and enables the country’s institutions to process and read the content stored in the smartchip.
Registration Centers
During 2011, EIDA completed the project of redesigning all its permanent centers across the country, last of which was the new Sharjah Registration Center. EIDA permanent registration centers are characterized by their open space and architecture that ensure the comfort of the customers and the provision of the best services as customers are the number one priority of EIDA. This strategic project contributed to raising the capacity of ID card and population register registrants. It also reflected positively on the level of customer satisfaction about the quality of services provided by the registration centers.
Preventive Medicine Project
The year 2011 witnessed the opening and full operation of over 20 registration centers attached to the preventive medicine centers across the country out of 25 centers that are expected to be in full operation by the beginning of 2012. The move comes as part of the project of development of the population register system and the forthcoming linkage of ID card and residence issuance procedures that is expected to be completed by the beginning of 2012. This project is the second milestone of EIDA’s new registration plan. The results of this project are expected to lead to the development of the population register system by raising the registration capacity to around 22,000 registrants through the centers attached to the preventive medicine centers and all other registration centers and offices of EIDA which is equivalent to 400,000 registrants per month.
Card Readers
EIDA launched an initiative aiming to develop a set of integrated ID card software to enable the public and private sectors across the country to easily and rapidly read the data stored in the smartchip. This set will be available in several programming languages that are compatible with several types of smart card readers to read the data stored in the card, process biometric data and verify the fingerprint on the card in addition to enabling smart card reading on the web browser.
Gulf Cooperation
The United Arab Emirates hosted the meetings of the Directive Smart Card Committee in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which came in the wake of the leadership’s keenness in the country and its ongoing directions to exert utmost effort for the success of the work of the joint committees in the GCC. By heading the meetings of the directive committee held last May in Abu Dhabi, EIDA asserted its keenness to enhance joint work in the field of digital identity among the GCC states which should reflect positively on the welfare of the GCC states and on enhancing means of mutual cooperation to maintain the GCC states’ accomplishments and continue the process of progress and growth.
Local and Global Appreciation
In 2011, EIDA maintained the information security ISO (27001) certification for all of its departments, which is an important indicator on its compliance with application of international standards in information security and an assertion of its ongoing efforts in deploying advanced technologies to ensure data privacy. EIDA also maintained ISO (9001) certification and obtained a number of local and international awards.
The ID card project in the United Arab Emirates gained international recognition represented in the many governmental invitations received by EIDA to participate in official international conferences to present its experience in developing a population register system as well as its strategic projects.
International Participation
In 2011, EIDA participated in a number of conferences and events worldwide foremost among which was the international summit on information and network security for the emerging markets which EIDA attended pursuant to invitation from the Finnish government during the second half of September 2011. EIDA also participated in a workshop on digital identity management organized by the European Commission in October 2011 in the Belgian capital, Brussels and in presence of a number of specialist senior government officials from across the European Union countries.
In an effort to continue its research effort aiming to enhance support of the scientific publishing movement in the field of specialized studies on ID card, EIDA published 8 scientific researches and studies during 2011 in international journals and periodicals.
EIDA’s Conferences and Exhibitions
At the level of organization of international events, EIDA hosted the 2011 Abu Dhabi International Summit on Advanced Identity Systems which was held under the auspices of HH Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, United Arab Emirates Minister of Interior and Deputy Prime Minister and EIDA Vice-Chairman, on 3-4 April 2011 with the participation of a large number of researchers and experts from 40 countries. For two days, this summit attracted prominent decision makers at the international level.
EIDA also succeeded in organizing the events of the Middle East 2011 Conference and Exhibition under the sponsorship of HH Lt General Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan. In its first session, this event witnessed the organization of around 60 specialized scientific seminars with the participation of tens of researchers and specialists as well as over 100 specialist and expert exhibitors from all over the world which rendered it the largest event of its kind in the region.
Source: (WAM) – Hoda Al Kabissi
Post Your Comment