Dubai Police, Courts, Prosecution and GDRF to develop lost passport Journey

 Dubai Police, Dubai Courts, Dubai Public Prosecution and the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs, announced during Gitex a project to ease the process of obtaining a lost passport certificate to three easy steps. The four government bodies signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the sidelines of Gitex, agreeing to share data between parties to streamline the process.

Dubai’s attorney general Eissam Eissa Al Humaidan, said, “The new service will cut the time it takes to register a lost passport. Usually it takes four days to get a certificate but the new service will enable the customer to get it quicker in three steps rather than eight.”

Usually when someone loses their passport they have to request Dubai Police to issue a letter and then he or she needs to get it stamped by the GDRFA, Dubai Courts and Dubai Public Prosecution, before revisiting the police station to collect a certificate.

Then the customer must apply for a new passport at their embassy before finally visiting the GDRFA to get a new residency permit. In the new service, the customer will get a lost passport certificate from police, before heading to the embassy and GDRFA.

Tarish Eid Al Mansouri, director-general of Dubai Courts, said, “We will provide the necessary budget for the project and will have a network to keep all parties automatically updated with passport data. There will be a team made up of people from each of the government bodies to achieve the new service.”

Major General Mohammad Ahmad Al Merri, director general of GDRFA-Dubai, said, “We are working with government bodies for more cooperation to ease procedures on customers.”

Major General Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, Assistant Commander-in-Chief for Criminal Investigation Affairs at Dubai Police, said, “The MoU, is part of the government’s strategy to use Block Chain platforms in 50 per cent of government transactions by 2021.”

Al Mansouri said that customers could get their certificates online through the Dubai Police website or via the smart app.