Saudi Interior Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif inaugurated on Thursday the new version of the electronic passport as he visited the Directorate General of Passports in Riyadh.
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Lieutenant-General Sulaiman Al-Yahya, Director General of Passports in Saudi Arabia, said the new passport, which will be disbursed gradually after the inauguration process, contained watermarks and precise security features that make it difficult to forge in any way.
He added that the new passport consisted of 48 pages, each featuring a historical landmark, including the No.7 oil well, which placed the Kingdom on the world oil map, in addition to Saudi Arabia’s airports, modern industries and petrochemicals.
Al-Yahya noted that the new version of the e-passport was achieved with Saudi expertise, and would include all vital information and characteristics, making it easier for the citizen to complete the procedures while traveling to any country in the world.
One of the advantages of the new passport is the “verification with the fingerprint” in the event of theft Al-Yahya stressed that this feature would facilitate the identification of the owner of the passport by matching his fingerprint.
The launching of the e-passport is the result of concerted efforts by the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Finance, and the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA), and was designed with the highest technical specifications and modern security features used in global travel documents, in implementation of one of the goals of Saudi Vision 2030.
During his visit to the Directorate, the interior minister met with the employees of the command-and-control center, workers at the unified call center 992, and the staff members of the beneficiary services center within the passport directorate.
