UAE organizes workshop to demonstrate Electronic Certification Center’s experience to GCC countries

The Emirates Identity Authority has announced that the UAE is hosting a technical workshop which representatives from the steering committee for smart ID cards in the GCC countries will participate in. This workshop comes in light of the working paper submitted by the UAE’s delegation during its participation in the eighth meeting of the committee held recently at the headquarters of the GCC General Secretariat in Riyadh.

The workshop scheduled to be held in May 2012, will discuss the case of the UAE in establishing the Electronic Certification Center as part of the digital ID project aiming to ensure verification mechanisms for identity of ID card holders and validity. This comes as a first step before sending the recommendations issued by this workshop to the steering committee in its next meeting in addition to the future roadmap for executing this proposition effectively in all member states.

Adopting ID Cards

The Emirates ID representing the UAE participated in the meetings of the GCC steering committee for smart ID cards along with delegations from all GCC member states and the GCC General Secretariat. A range of recommendations were reached, foremost among which is for the concerned entities in member states to issue legislations and binding decisions to the public and private sectors to accept the ID card as a proof of identity for citizens of the GCC countries within one year at the latest. This recommendation supports the decision of the supreme council issued in this regard in its 32^nd round held in Riyadh in December 2011.

Health Agenda

During its meeting, the committee agreed to ask the ministries of health in member states to adopt the medical data stored on the smart card as official source of information. The committee also recommended that the ministries of health in member states work on linking medical databases among member states.

It was decided to incorporate required medical data for urgent cases in the smart card. It was also decided to include non-medical data in the smart card due to their importance namely biometrics (i.e. full name; address; phone number; gender; date of birth; names of contacts in case of emergency; insurance information; fingerprint).

E-Portals

The committee agreed that members states should update smart card readers on their e-portals so that they can read touch and non-touch cards and provide the committee in its next meeting with follow-up reports from member states on measures taken in this regard.

The committee recommended that the GCC member states that impose fees on the GCC citizens for use of e-portals should abolish such fees. It was agreed that GCC citizens should be able to register on e-portals for once in case of possible reading of biometrics from the smart card which is necessary to operate e-portals unless this is not feasible.

The committee also agreed to assign the GCC General Secretariat to submit a report briefing the committee on the measures taken with regard to resolution of the 30^th meeting of Their Highnesses and Excellency Ministers of Interior held in December 2011 in Abu Dhabi. The meeting was held to discuss the use of smart cards on e-portals among GCC countries. The Ministries of Interior in member states should consequently be furnished with the report.

Lost Cards

The attendees decided to ask the UAE to include the issue of finding an information exchange mechanism among GCC countries about reporting lost smart ID cards inside or outside the GCC countries as one of the subjects of the technical workshop scheduled to be held in the UAE in May 2012. The recommendations reached by the workshop in this regard will be sent to the steering committee in its coming meeting.

Card Reading at Checkpoints

The committee stressed the readiness of all member states from the technical aspect to e-read smart cards at checkpoints between GCC countries. It was agreed that the committee represented by its members will approach the concerned entities at the Ministries of Interior in member states to start operating the e-reading of smart cards at checkpoints among the GCC countries and to provide the committee with a follow-up report in this regard. The Kingdom of Bahrain was also asked to amend the standardized reading software to be able to read images in coordination with the UAE.

Protection of LDS

The committee viewed the measures taken by the member states to implement the GCC-LDS protection mechanism. It took account that Kuwait had already implemented it, whereas it was decided that the rest of the member states should start implementing that in next versions of the ID card so that the card reading software may be amended accordingly.

Driving Licenses

The committee assigned the GCC General Secretariat to hold a joint meeting between the technical team of the steering committee and experts from traffic departments to identify the necessary technical and procedural requirements to add the driving license applications to the smart card. The GCC General Secretariat will brief the committee on conclusions in its next meeting.

On the other hand, the 9^th meeting of the committee was decided to be held in the Kingdom of Bahrain in January 2013. The exact time will be specified through coordination between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the GCC General Secretariat.

The UAE’s delegation was headed by H.E. Mohamed Al Mazrouei, Executive Director of Population Register at Emirates ID, and Mr. Shadi Zuraiqat, IT Consultant.