The majority of the governmental authorities in the United Arab Emirates are requested to transact using the electronic Family Book; which includes details of family members of UAE nationals. The Federal Authority for Identity & Citizenship “ICA” generated an innovative solution by introducing a smart electronic platform, where the governmental entities are coherently linked with each other so that all details pertaining to the family book could be automatically and smoothly extracted; as this friendly-user platform helps in reducing the risk of fraud and faults in data entry.

It is worth mentioning that all services related to Family Book are basically fully digitalized and automated. Meanwhile these innovative services could be easily provided via both mobile devices’ applications and ICA website. Users can easily review and amend their personal information and to apply for availing the services remotely at any time without the need to visit customers service centers to submit their applications.

This top-notch solution assisted significantly in facilitating exchange of data related to the family book between the UAE governmental entities and the UAE nationals in an electronic and integrated way without the need for any paperwork registration processes. This smart service actively contributed to reducing the customers visit to the minimal and thus avoids queuing for a long-awaiting time to avail the service. Furthermore, this proactive initiative sustains ensuring that the highest levels of data security, confidentiality and reliability are maintained by using the UAE Identity Card as well as this step allowed to store family book data and details on “SIM Cards”.

Approving the electronic Family Book, which officially came into effect under the Cabinet resolution issued on 01^st July, 2019, ICA marked a significant and tremendous achievement towards developing the electronic and smart governmental services by employing the cutting-edge technology in the governmental transactions.  This leading step facilitated the procedures for UAE nationals by shortening, saving their time and effort consumed in completing the transactions to the minimal steps in line with the governmental approach to provide fully-fledged services remotely and in a timely and cost-effective manner with minimal visits to customer service centers by decreasing the visitors up to 80% by 2021.

Brigadier Suhail Jumah Alkhaili