Technical glitch disrupts Emirates ID transactions

Following a “technical glitch,” official transactions related to national ID cards in the UAE were disrupted for nearly two days.

“When we were trying to upload the application forms on Emirates Identity Authority’s (Emirates ID) system, it was showing a message: ‘system error,’” a typing center employee told the Gulfnews.com.

During the outage, new applicants could not sign up for ID cards, and those who came to renew were also unable to do so.

According to a report in Gulfnews.com, Emirates ID confirmed that its e-form system, managed by Emaratech, faced performance issues affecting service across the UAE.

Reported in BiometricUpdate.com, Emirates ID received official certification from the World Record Academy for having the world’s largest biometric database. The data base contains over 103 million decimal and rolled fingerprints and palm prints, as well as more than 15 million facial prints and digital signatures.

In 2009, Emirates ID developed a plan which contributing to doubling the number of population registers and therefore the fingerprints of individuals over the past three years by six times.

National ID programs, like that of the Emirates ID, are being implemented in many countries including India, Nigeria, Indonesia and Pakistan, among others.

A recent Biometric Research Note suggests that new challenges regarding issuance, usability and accuracy have increased the need for systematic processes to implement government eID programs successfully and efficiently.

Article Topics

biometric database  |  biometrics  |  electronic-signature  |  facial recognition  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  government  |  government database  |  government purchasing  |  identification  |  national ID  |  palm prints  |  UAE