Key services to open for Emirates ID holders

About 3.75 million national ID card holders in the country had received a PIN (personal identification number) along with their cards but never got a chance to use it, said a senior official. They will be able to use the PIN soon to access online services of government and private sector as the Emirates Identity Authority (Emirates ID) is in the final stages of building infrastructure for electronic services, Dr Ali Al Khoury, Director General of Emirates ID, told Gulf News Sunday. Abu Dhabi Government will be the first one in the country to utilise that electronic infrastructure to offer about 600 e-government services to the ID card holders, he added. Al Khoury spoke to Gulf News on the sidelines of a press conference to announce the Cards Middle East, the region's largest exhibition cum conference on cards, payment and ID exhibition for banks, government, telecoms and retailers. At the event, which opens tomorrow at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre, the authority will announce the progress of the digital identity infrastructure, the official said. The two-day event features over 100 leading solution providers showcasing the latest in card, payment and ID technology innovation, said Matt Wallhead, General Manager of Terrapinn, the organiser of the event. Al Khoury will open the Digital ID World Middle East conference on the topic of "Multiple services, multiple stakeholders, one platform." He will speak about how to deliver unified and connected e-service, adopting an enterprise approach to digital identity, improving public service delivery through alignment and coordination of access and implementing unified and connected government services. Multipurpose As Gulf News reported earlier, the Emirates ID had announced while introducing the national ID card that it will become a multipurpose smart card. "But our attention has been to increase the enrolment of people, which has reached a satisfactory level, so that we are stepping into the new stage of making the card a multi-purpose smart card," Al Khoury said. He said Emirates ID is building Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), a validation network that can be used by both public and private sector to identify the online users. The biggest challenge before the government [and the private sector too] for providing e-services is verifying the identity of the online users, the official said. "We are providing that infrastructure and it is up to the government organisations and private sector to utilise it," he said. He said the Cards Middle East will help create awareness about the card. Technology in focus Cards Middle East is expected to attract over 2,000 visitors. The entry is free. Ala‘a Eraiqat, CEO, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank , will open the interactive conference dedicated to strategising growth in the new era of credit. He will discuss how to capitalise on new payment platforms, new card portfolios and new customer profiles. Payment and identification technologies are evolving faster than ever before and the seminar and exhibition agendas reflects this. There will be presentations and case studies.