Smart Engines OCR praised by Russian Hajj tour operator for speeding up applications

Smart Engines technology for ID scanning and reading has been integrated by Russia’s official booking system for Hajj pilgrimages, making the booking process seven times faster, according to a company announcement.

Muslim Tour organizes pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia as the official tour operator of Russia’s Council of Muftis and the Russia’s Spiritual Administration of Muslims. Pilgrims must share a Russian passport image, meningitis vaccine certification, and in some cases further documents, like proof of being Islamic or relationships for women.

The Smart ID Engine and GreenOCR technology developed by Smart Engines were integrated by Muslim Tour in 2019, and the company notes that it allows Muslim Tour to protect the data it collects without transferring it to third parties.

The quota for Hajj pilgrims from Russia this year is 25,000, which matches pre-pandemic volumes. Most registrations are carried out remotely.

“Before integrating the Smart ID Engine developed by Smart Engines, we tested several OCR systems,” says Ali Ibragimov, CEO of Muslim Tour. “When using other solutions, various recognition errors occurred. This can lead to fines in Saudi Arabia equal to the cost of an entire trip.”

The organization also prefers to receive face photos from documents instantly, rather than extracting them from a document’s biometric chip, which Smart Engines supports. Ibragimov says in the announcement that the company offers the most “powerful and secure solutions” on the OCR market.

Article Topics

document verification  |  identity document  |  OCR  |  Smart Engines