Hamad? Hamad? Who On Earth Is Hamad?

Image via CrunchBase

Yes, the headline on this post does indeed come to you courtesy The Ministry Of Polite Headlines.

The Emirates Identity Authority, or EIDA, has announced a new campaign to 'enhance interaction with customers'. This will no doubt be a source of some considerable glee to many 'customers' who have lacked in some way 'interaction', although I have to say as the whole process has bedded in over the past six years - yes, it has taken that long and yes, they did think it was all going to take six months - there are plenty of points of interaction already.

However, if they see the need to open up another, who am I to complain? After all, I have complained often enough in the past about one-way communications, wilfully obtuse communications and sheer blindingly, infuriatingly mendacious communications. What better than to be answerable to your customers 24x7 at Twitterspeed?

Gulf News carries the story, courtesy of national news agency WAM but labelled as a 'staff report', in which an EIDA official tells them, apparently, the initiative is "in line with Emirates ID’s keenness to consistently communicate with its customers and interact with them through their favourite channels, especially on smart phones and tablets in an innovative way through a cartoon character derived from the UAE heritage."

Hamad is that cartoon character. He comes, apparently, as part of the Emirates ID strategic plan 2010-2013 that aims to enhance customers' satisfaction. He has his own hashtag, #AskHamad, which at the time of writing consisted of two lonely tweets, both carrying a picture of the cartoon character and reading, "Can you guess why I'm here?"

No, Hamad. I have no idea why you're there.

The clincher for me was the fact that Hamad is only going to be there from 12-2pm every Thursday. That's it. You have a two hour window to use the world's biggest always-on real-time communications channel. That's why there are only two lonely tweets there - they haven't opened Hamad for business yet. You wait until Thursday - this baby's gonna trend! Or perhaps not.

Emirates ID already has a Twitter account, @emiratesID_help. Why it needs a two-hour account with a cartoon of a small boy splashed on it, I really don't know.

Anyway, they must know what they're doing. Gulf News tells us Emirates ID won two international awards in social media management last June (the Golden Award for “Best use of social media measurement” and the Sliver Award for “Best use of Communication Management- Public Sector”, says Gulf News.

I have no idea what a sliver award is, but can only assume it's a very small award.

Emirates ID. One Card To Rule Them All...

Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is going to be interesting to watch in October. Apparently, by then, the Emirates ID National Identity Card will be used to access all Dubai government services. That's according to a report in Gulf News. The first phase of the MyID initiative will open up 20 government departments to the use of an Emirates ID rather than individual logons and passwords for each government entity.

Which is a good thing, right? Rather than having 20-odd IDs and passwords, you can just whip out your trusty deicer  National ID card and proudly cry, "This is me! Open up your services to me, government department!"

Except that most of us don't need to access 20 government departments. I guess RTA for Salik payments, Dubai Police for registration and naturalisation and immigration for labour cards, visas and Emirates ID cards is probably about my lot. I suppose the NMC and Ministry of Youth and Culture when I'm publishing books. Oh, Ministry of Health for the biennial blood test.

And if they get just that lot together, functional and inter-operating seamlessly with the National ID that in itself will be an achivement. If they get all 20 working by October? I shall be sore amazed.

I'm not saying Dubai can't do it. You should never say Dubai can't do something, because you'll more often as not lose your shirt on it. But then the Emirates ID has amassed considerable form in the "announce now clarify tomorrow" stakes.

We can only wait and see...

The Emirates ID Card Confusion Continues

clarity matters"" (Photo credit: atinirdosh)

EIDA, the Emirates ID Authority, has established a remarkable track record of communication since its very inception. Many's the time I have posted about this deadline and that requirement being countered by that requirement and this deadline. Nothing has ever been terribly clear since the get go, if you don't mind me saying so.

And it remains oblique, opaque, obtuse and generally obfuscated. Today we have two reports in our newspapers. Well, news media - as one, Emirates 24x7, is not technically a paper anymore, having sublimed and become a being of pure energy.

Gulf News, then, is first to punch its grateful subscribers' eyeballs with a typically hard-hitting headline:

Millions of expat employees in UAE to save ID card costs biennially

The story, linked here for your viewing pleasure, is quite unequivocal:

"Millions of expatriate employees in the country can save the cost of over Dh200 for ID card renewal every two years, thanks to a new move by the Emirates Identity Authority (Emirates ID). Sponsors have to bear the costs of national ID cards of their expatriate employees, according to a top official."

And so on. It's quite clear, no beating around the bush. Our sponsors have to pay for our ID cards and take responsibility for the same - presumably extending to late renewal penalties (not cleared up in the story, but we can wait for clarity. God knows, we've waited since 2008.)

But what's this, in Emirates 24x7?

Rule to let sponsors bear expats' ID card cost under study: Eida

Hang on a cotton-pickin' moment there. 'Under study' doesn't mean 'new move', now does it? Emirates 24x7 goes on to add awful clarity to the assertion that this is no done deal but a 'move under the anvil' as Gulf News would have itself put it.

“We are considering the proposal to make it mandatory for sponsors to pay for the ID cards of their employee, but it has not been finalised. It is currently left for the companies to decide whether they want to pay the cost,” an Eida spokesperson told Emirates 24/7. No timeframe was, however, given on when the directive would be issued.

So has Gulf News jumped the gun, or Emirates 24x7 simply got it wrong? Or has EIDA told two different reporters two different things? Or perhaps told them both the same thing in terms so confusing they've come away with two different stories entirely?

We await, with a feeling of remorseless, crushing deja vu, clarification.

Where's My Identity Card?

English: Letters in a post office box in a US post office lobby. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I renewed my UAE residence visa last month. Visas used to last for three years, now they last for two. This is apparently to improve the flexibility of the labour market. Sure enough, a new Emirates Identity Card is also part of the fun and games.

Yesterday marked the passing of The Last Great Deadline for applying for an ID card in Dubai. The Emirates Identity Authority, or EIDA, has been issuing dire warnings and waffling about deadlines since the whole thing started back in 2007. Five years later, the card issuing process is finally linked (or at least, operating in parallel) with the visa application process and a deadline has passed without being extended, clarified or otherwise obfuscated.

I had to go to Sharjah's Central Post Office yesterday. I wanted to wait around for fifteen minutes waiting for a listless youth, who had apparently had all the bones removed from his body, to find my registered letter and experience tells me this is the best place to do it. While I was waiting for the aforementioned youth to bother turning up, I noticed a long, shuffling queue which led to a counter labelled "ID Card Collection Counter". Behind this, there were floor to ceiling racks stacked of cardboard mail boxes stuffed with envelopes and two grumpy looking blokes flopping around and grugingly doling out envelopes to supplicants. Because your ID card isn't actually sent to your PO Box, it's sent to the post office where your PO Box is and then handed out individually. There are in fact two queues - the one with no people queuing in it is marked 'Ladies and Locals'. There must have been thousands of envelopes in all.

This dystopian little scene reminded my of my own, as yet undelivered, ID card. It's been nearly a month since the visa was issued and there's been no sign of any ID card. I asked around. A pal with a visa issued last December is still waiting for her ID card. Another who applied in May is set to go for fingerprinting late in July.

Anybody with a less charitable outlook would conclude that the EIDA people are swamped and the whole system is totally backed up trying to manage the tide of last minute applications. If the scenes in the EIDA back office are in any way parallel to the communications side of things, it must be a tottering, Heath-Robinson style system creaking dangerously under the pressure.

I prefer to think of it as a well oiled machine snapping into action. And anyway, I'm in no hurry to join that long, hopeless-looking queue in the post office...

Has anybody out there actually received an ID card recently?

Cue Another Farce?

Two cellphone SIM cards (bottom and top) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Did  you catch this one? I, for one, didn't I've missed it until I finally tumbled today.

The UAE's Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) last week launched a new campaign, 'My number, my identity'. It's probably my fault and certainly not the almost impenetrably obtuse language of the announcement which is clarified by Gulf News today in a story that, try as I might, I could not find online.

We're all going to have to trot off and re-register our mobile SIMs with whichever operator we're with. From July 17th, Etisalat will have over 100 registration points around the country where you can go, eagerly clutching your national ID or passport with visa, and complete an application form to, effectively, re-apply for your mobile phone number. Du didn't confirm its re-registration arrangement intentions to GN in order to make the story, but CEO Osman Sultan, quoted in the TRA release lauding the TRA's campaign, did say customers could go to Du shops.

Many of you will recognise July 17th as the likely starting point for Ramadan, the ideal time to conduct a national campaign of this sort.

Unregistered SIM cards will be cancelled "once the registration period expires" according to the GN story. We haven't been told when that is, or what likely timescale they have in mind.

There are 12.36 million mobile lines out there. It's taken five years for the Emirates ID Authority to 'roll out' the national ID card. How long will it take this campaign I wonder? How many needless frustrations, queues, visits to physical locations and extended deadlines, empty threats, retracted announcements and 'clarifications' are we set to see?

But believe me folks, take this one seriously and get in there early. Because if there's one thing these bohos can do well, it's cut people off...

EIDA Discovers The Internet

Eida (Photo credit: cgsheldon)

A lovely piece in Khaleej Times today lifted from national news agency WAM  telling us how the Emirates Identity Authority is launching "the Social Media engagement service". 

The brave providers of 'context and analysis' didn't even bother changing WAM's copy,  using the official headline and including the redundant definite article and the unnecessary caps for social media. You can read the EIDA announcement on the authority's website here.

I must confess, they might have made a remarkable four year long hash of their communications, but EIDA has consistently served up quality entertainment.

The "Social Media engagement service" will help customers with queries and "underscored the Emirates ID’s keenness on keeping pace with the development of the modern media and employing the social networking tools for upgrading the ID card-related services and meeting customers’ requirements by responding to their queries and solving their problems most urgently through the channels they prefer in their daily life."

EIDA has already lauded its own success with  the service, replying to over 1,700 customer queries and complaints last month alone. It's followers have grown by 40% over the month-long test period.

If you want to social media engage with the Emirates ID people, you can talk to them on Twitter @EmiratesID_HELP or on Facebook, where you can pick up insightful hints and tips such as 'Important info! Ensure that all personal data entered in the e-form are correct'.

There is also, by the way, a new ID card status service. I've just renewed my visa (itself a somewhat fraught process in the circumstances) and am waiting for my new ID card so I thought I'd try it out. Apparently I'm 15 years old, which is always nice to discover when father time weighs down on one's shoulders. Quite where my ID card is, I couldn't honestly say...

Shiny Happy ID Card

Day 70 - Marmoset (Photo credit: zzathras777)

"Hi. I'm here to apply for my Shiny ID card."
"Have you filled in the form using the online application application?"
"No."
"Well, you have to do that."
"Can I just not apply here?"
"Yes. As of yesterday you can apply here, but not tomorrow."
"So why did you tell me I had to do an online application application?"
"The requirement for an online application application applies to online applications."
"So what do I do?"
"Join that long, shuffling queue of listless people there."
"The one headed for the door marked "Nowhere"?
"That's the one. Do you have three photographs of yourself countersigned by a marmoset?"
"No. I was hoping you'd tell me what I'd need as the website is very confusing and changes every day."
"You'll need those pretty sharpish, there's a deadline you know."
"What is it?"
"Yesterday."
"But there's no point in me applying then!"
"Yes there is, you'll incur fines of Dhs25 a day to a maximum of Dhs1,000. That'll be Dhs25 please."
"What for?"
"Your first day's fines."


"Okay, here we are. Three photographs countersigned by a marmoset."
"Don't be silly, marmosets can't write. We changed that requirement oh, at least an hour ago."
"Just take them. What else do you need?"
"Your passport, passport copy, visa, visa copy and the online application printed out. Two copies of a copy of your copy copy and three pinches of peppermint snuff."
"There we go!"
"Right. Join that queue then. You've got plenty of time."
"I thought there was a deadline?"
"It got extended again."
"So what happens now?"
"Join the queue. At the end of the queue is a man who'll send you to another queue."
"Can't I just join the other queue straight away?"
"No. There's a system."


"Okay, I've queued for hours, punched and stamped my papers, I've been bioscanned and now I've finally got the card. What can I use it for?"
*blank look*

Amazing backstory linked here.

The Emirates ID Card Moves Online

Image via Wikipedia

The Emirates ID Card was launched in 2008. Now, in 2012, we are to see the application process for the card implemented as an online form. Launched initially for UAE nationals only, the online application will be rolled out to UAE residents and GCC nationals in the 'next two months'.

This latest in a long line of announcements, many of which have been followed by clarifications, is potentially the most welcome (and useful) of all.

Gulf News, reporting on the move, focuses on the cost saving to applicants (you save the Dhs30 typing centre fee, so the card will cost you a mere Dhs240 instead of Dhs270) rather than the saving in travel, waiting, queuing, shuffling around from counter to counter with a pile of papers and general messing about involved.

Although, as is so often the case, there's a whiff of sulphur invading the clear air of paradise - Gulf News' story (linked here for your viewing pleasure) contains the line, "Online applicants can print out their receipt which will mention the appointment to visit an Emirates ID registration centre."

Of course, an online application process would involve filling in a form, uploading copies of any documents required, paying any fees online with a credit card and then having the card mailed to you, wouldn't it? It would be insanity to have people filling in the forms online and then having to make an appointment to physically travel to an Emirates ID registration centre and queue to have the application reviewed and the card issued to them in person. Nobody in their right minds would implement an online process like that, would they?

I should perhaps remind you that this announcement comes from the people that gave us the application application, an online application that allowed you to fill out and print the application form required to make an application for an appointment to make your application.

We can only await the usual clarification...