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A typing centre at Mazaya Centre in Dubai accepts ID card applications. Children not yet registered for an Emirates ID card must be signed up for the national identity scheme by the end of September. Image Credit: Oliver Clarke/Gulf News

Abu Dhabi: The National ID card will be mandatory to complete any official transaction at almost all government departments and organisations across the country by the end of this year, a senior official said.

About 150 government department and entities have already adopted the ID card as a mandatory document for their official transactions, Dr Ali Al Khoury, director general of Emirates ID, told Gulf News.

“As part of the ID card being made a mandatory identity document, the Emirates ID has distributed thousands of electronic card readers to the government sector this year and we expect to distribute more than 100,000 card readers,” he said.

The card readers help quickly identify a customer and speeds up the transactions in those entities, he said.

“Our efforts to distribute card readers to government organisations will encourage more of them to adopt ID card as the mandatory document for identification,” Al Khoury said.

He said the Ministry of Education, Abu Dhabi Education Council and the Knowledge and Human Development Authority in Dubai have all adopted the ID card as a mandatory document for new academic year or semester registration and other related processes.