Oman to issue new ID cards 

(MENAFN - Khaleej Times) Oman is preparing to issue new ID cards to citizens and expatriates that are more technically advanced and boast several new features, including much greater memory capacity than existing ones.

The new cards will be supplied and the necessary accessories and equipment for issuing them provided by French firm Gemalto together with the card reader software.

An agreement in this regardwas signed here on Tuesday with the company by the Inspector-General of Police and Customs, Lieutenant-general Hassan bin Mohsin Al Shuraiqi.

"The contract comes within the plans of the Royal Oman Police to move to the new generation of civil identity cards, offering easier and safer services to both citizens and residents with guaranteed security and safety of data," an ROP spokesman said.

He added the cards would be technically much more advanced. "For example, they will have double memory size in comparison with the currently used ones. This allows to download more service application on the electronic chip, in addition to existing applications like electronic encryption," he explained.

The new cards, the spokesman further said, would also contain health data of the holder which ROP plans to add on to them in co-ordination with the Health Ministry and Information Technology Authority (ITA).

Among the new security features will be electronic signature and fingerprints.