430,000 expat professionals yet to apply for ID cards

Abu Dhabi: About 430,000 expatriate professionals are yet to register for ID cards, with just 13 days before the deadline for expatriate professionals to register expires, a senior official told Gulf News.

About 170,000 expatriate professionals and about 725,000 Emiratis [of an estimated 825,000] have already registered, said Darwish Ahmad Al Zarouni, Director General of Emirates Identity Authority (Eida).

He spoke to Gulf News on the sidelines of Citizens ID Forum , a two-day international symposium on electronic identification documents which began in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

About 300 delegates from 30 countries are participating in the event organised by Wise media and supported by Eida and Abu Dhabi Police. The speech of Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Interior was read out by Al Zarouni at the symposium. EIDA and Ministry of Interior will be most effective bodies to speed up transformation to a full e-governance in the UAE, said Shaikh Saif's statement.

Al Zarouni and senior officials from Abu Dhabi Police and various other organisations from abroad made the presentations on the first day. Al Zarouni said expatriate professionals need not panic about the deadline but they will not enjoy priority when the registration for another category opens on March 1.

He reiterated that no punitive measures would be taken because all expatriates have to register by the end of December 2010 as per the law. The original deadline for expatriate professionals was extended from December 31 to February 28.

Among the 100,000 Emiratis who have not yet registered, 90,000 are from Sharjah, Dubai and Abu Dhabi emirates, another senior official told Gulf News. (March 31 is the deadline for Emiratis). Just 10,000 Emiratis are yet register in Ras Al Khaimah, Umm Al Quwain, Ajman and Fujairah, said Thamer Rashid Al Qasimi, Planning Director and Project Management Director at Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA).

Past month: 10,000 fail iris scans

About 10,000 people failed iris scans during the past one month, senior police officials told Gulf News yesterday. Most of them were permanently banned from entering the country or were banned for a specific period or on the wanted list of UAE authorities for involvement in crimes, said Lieutenant Jamal Jassim Al Hosani, Burglar Alarm Branch Manager at IT and Telecommunication Department of Abu Dhabi Police.