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29 March 2024

Get 'e-identity' and get served on your phone

Services of 20 government bodies will be available through the mobile phone by October.

Published
By Mohammad El Sadafy and Wam

Dubai eGovernment and the Emirates Identity Authority on Monday launched the 'My E-identity' initiative which will enable the public to avail of the services of 20 government bodies through the mobile phone or the Internet by using their Emirates ID card from October.

This was announced at a press conference in Dubai on Monday. Ahmad Bin Humaidan, Director General of Dubai eGovernment, and Ali Al Khouri, Director General of the Emirates Identity Authority, and Wissam Lootah, Assistant Director General of Dubai eGovernment, were present.

The initiative is part of the attempt to move to smart government and aims to bring government services round-the-clock through the mobile phone within two years.

The objective is to enable businessmen to avail of all government e-services through the internet or a smart phone using a single username and password.

Dubai eGovernment, in coordination with all agencies of the government of Dubai, currently offers more than 1,500 electronic services to customers in various sectors (health, education, electricity, water, communications, licensing cars etc. ), through the websites of the government agencies.

The customer needs to pre-register his user name and password with each government body separately.

Smart phone app for business registration and licensing

The Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai has unveiled a first-of-its-kind smart phone application for business registration and licensing in line with the mobile government (m-government) initiative of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to provide 24x7 access to the public to all federal and local government services in the UAE within the next two years.

The smart phone App, which will be available on iPhones in the first phase, will enable businesses and investors to conduct a range of business registration and licensing transactions, already available online, through iPhones anytime, anywhere.

Services currently available on the new app includes trade name reservation, renewal of trade names, initial approval of licences, renewal of licences, enquiry about fines, as well as company lookup (search for existing companies operating in Dubai and gain information on their business activities). The new application will be available for free upload via Apple Store on Monday June 3.

"The e-services launched from time to time by the Department of Economic Development have significantly improved the ease of doing business in Dubai. We are keen to support the mobile government initiative of Sheikh Mohammed as it will add to overall competitiveness in Dubai and the UAE," said Sami Al Qamzi, Director General of DED.

Al Qamzi added: "The main focus of DED and its agencies is on positioning Dubai on the map of the most competitive cities in the world, which in turn will boost trade."

Mohammed Shael Al Saadi, CEO of the Business Registration & Licensing (BRL) sector in DED, said 95 per cent of the BRL services are available online.

"Unrestrained access to government services in Dubai will be another major advantage for businessmen and investors for whom the emirate is a destination of choice. We will bring more BRL services on the new App and also extend it to the iPad and Android platforms in the next phase," Al Saadi said.

DED had organised training programmes on apps development for its IT staff by the end of 2012 and the team had also worked on developing a Beta version of the BRL App.
 
"The new App is a major triumph for our IT staff who worked on this project," said Abdullah Hassan, Executive Director, Shared Services Sector in DED.

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