Abu Dhabi: About 50,000 national ID cards have not been delivered to the applicants due to the problems with their address and contact numbers, a senior official told Gulf News on Sunday.
"We have handed over 500,000 cards to the two courier services and Emirates Post but at least ten per cent of them were not delivered due to problems with address and contact numbers," Dr Ali Al Khoury, Director General of Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA), said at ID World Abu Dhabi, an annual conference.
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He said some of applicants might have changed their address and contact numbers.
In due course
About the 500,000 cards handed over to the courier services and Emirates Post, Al Khoury said, they would be delivered in due course.
"They might have delivered many cards and we are handing over new cards to them, so the number of cards lying with courier services and Emirates Post will always change," he said.
Although EIDA prints 250,000 cards a day, the current capacity of two courier services and Emirates Post does not permit them to handle that much, the official said.
He said a new dispenser machine which exhibited at the conference will be able to distribute 5,000 cards a day, if more storage space is allotted.
As Gulf News reported on March 15, applicants will be able to collect the cards from the dispenser by scanning his or her fingerprints.
Services ready
ID card holders will be able to access e-services by the middle of the year, Dr Ali Al Khoury said.
EIDA is building an infrastructure to identify each user, he said. It is in touch with the Ministry of Health to integrate health cards and medical insurance cards with ID cards in future.
Emiratis are already using cards to travel to GCC countries, the official said.
