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29 March 2024

Emirates ID has world's largest number of civil integrated biometrics

Published
By Staff

Emirates Identity Authority has announced its possession of the world's largest database of civil integrated biometrics within the UAE population register system with a total of around 103 million decimal and rounded fingerprints as well as the prints of the palm, hand and hand side and over 15 million facial prints and digital signatures, until October 11, 2012.

On the sidelines of its participation in Gitex Technology Week 2012, which kicked off in Dubai world Trade Center today, the Emirates ID announced that it had submitted an official application to the World Record Academy to register its attempt to achieve a record, the first of its kind in the world, that would bring it new international recognition of the unprecedented figure it achieved.

"This achievement is one of the fruits that gained from UAE leaders' prudent decision to create Emirates Identity Authority that aimed at developing an advanced system to manage the population register. This is contributing to strengthening national and individual security in the State, as well as supporting the comprehensive development programs in the country," said Dr. Ali Mohamed Al Khouri.

Dr. Al Khouri added that this record made by the Emirates Identity Authority, is a new addition to the globe achievements in various fields that confirms the clear and future vision of the leadership of the State that ensures the success of this national and strategic project that serve the supreme national objectives and the interests of the nation. This project is to contribute to developing and facilitating government services, providing information about the demographics that support decision making and strategic planning, especially, in the areas of allocating resources, in different sectors and areas.

Dr. Al Khouri confirmed that Emirates Identity Authority that was founded in September of 2004 has moved forward toward completing a world class and sophisticated population register system. This system provides unique identification and secured verification for every citizen or resident in UAE by giving them a unique personal numbers linked to his/her biometric characteristics such as fingerprints.

Emirates ID developed its strategic plan by the end of 2009, thereby contributing to doubling the number of population registers and hence the fingerprints of individuals over the past three years by 6 times up to the end of last September to a total of around 102 million civil integrated fingerprints record up to last September 2012, compared to around 14 million fingerprints record in the same period of 2009.

Dr. Al Khouri added "providing a comprehensive database of inhabitants' fingerprints, will contribute and support projects related to Emirates national vision 2021, aimed at enhancing the security and advancement of society, as well as supporting e-government projects through authenticating personal identity in e-transactions conducted over the Internet, thus contributing to hindering the risk of identity theft that increases day by day worldwide. This criminal behavior caused losses estimated at hundreds of billions of dirhams.

Dr. Al Khouri explained that the Authority succeeded in this achievement, as a result of the reengineering of registration procedures and the improving of electronic infrastructure, through the use of modern and high quality electronic hardware and software specialized in capturing high quality fingerprints.

Emirates ID had announced in 2011 that its technology used to recognizing fingerprints came in the first place worldwide subsequently for the second time, according to "Morphou Safran Inc.", which is the producer of this technique and is the world's largest company specializing in biometrics and recognition of identity through the eye, face and fingerprints business.

Emirates ID clarified that, at the time, this result came as part of the assessment of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for ID systems' emulation in terms of rapidness, accuracy and compatibility in all circumstances Emirates ID said the UAE is one of the first countries that have applied this leading technology since 2003, adding that the UAE is still using it in the ID card emulation to identify the identity of individuals and confirm it by matching the real fingerprint against the stored fingerprints on the smart chip, according to ISO 7816 for smart cards.