In efforts to reduce the long queues at the Passport Office in Jeddah, authorities are bringing the online service, Abshir to residents鈥� homes to help them enroll into the electronic system. Passport officials are also visiting institutions with large numbers of expatriate workers to explain the service and enable them to register with Abshir.
Brig. Khalf Al-Tuwairgi, director of Passports in the Makkah region, met with Prince Mishaal bin Majed, governor of Jeddah, at his office on Thursday to explain the Passport Department services including Abshir in the governorate.
He said that special vehicles carrying the tools needed for Abshir services including a high speed net connectivity to the Ministry of Interior servers are in the field to ensure that residents can now avail themselves of the service at their doorstep.
Abshir, part of the Interior Ministry鈥檚 e-portal, is an electronic service which can be activated through a one-time password (OTP) feature.
The feature sends a verification code via SMS to the user鈥檚 mobile to authenticate the user鈥檚 identity to help him get started.
The MoI e-portal is considered one of the most important government services as it provides more than 100 e-services for over 4 million people.
Passport officials of the Makkah region conducted an Abshir enrollment campaign at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah where it registered some thousands of new users into the system.
鈥淎lthough many of us had heard about the Abshir, it was a good move on the part of the Passport officials to explain the e-service to us and to visit our campus to enroll us into the system,鈥� Abdullah bin Mustafa Maherjee, a senior official of King Abdulaziz University, said.
A health professional working at King Fahd Hospital said: 鈥淚t will be very helpful if similar services are offered to us.鈥�
Mohammad Al-Ghamdi said that the service was very useful as he can now print his domestic help鈥檚 iqama and complete the exit/-re-entry procedures at any time using any Abshir machine in the city.
Arshad Ali Mahmood, a Pakistani expatriate, agreed saying that there was no longer any need to follow up with the company鈥檚 representative to visit the Passport office for exit/re-entry procedures 鈥渁s I am now doing it myself using the Abshir machine at Sarafi Mall.鈥�
He also hoped that the Passport Office would install more Abshir machines in the city.