Citizen ID Forum to display new technologies

Abu Dhabi: New technologies will be displayed at an international symposium to be held in the capital next month, officials said at a press conference on Monday.

The Citizen ID Forum, the global symposium on the digitalisation of citizen identification documents, will be held on February 15 and 16 under the patronage of Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Interior.

The event is endorsed by European Commission and supported by the Emirates Identity Authority (EIDA) and Abu Dhabi Police.

"We will see how new technologies displayed at the forum can be adopted to improve UAE ID cards," said Darwish Ahmad Al Zarouni, director general of EIDA.

New Field Communication (NFC) technology will be one of the latest wireless technologies to be displayed at the forum, said Sophie B de la Giroday, president of Wise Media, the organiser of the event.

"With NFC, you can make payments through your mobile phones," Giroday said.

"It can also be used for transportation [for ticketing], banking, hospitality and telecom sectors, she said.

"The exposure to the experiences of other governments worldwide makes this a unique knowledge sharing platform that we are delighted to support," said Al Zarouni.

Referring to the forum held last year, Major General Ahmad N Al Raisi, general director of General Directorate of Central Operations at Abu Dhabi Police said: "It really gave us the opportunity to see the best technologies available today for the creation of durable biometrics enabled documents, cutting edge data collection and boarder control systems as well as identity management solutions".