By Naadiya Adams – @Miss_Naadiya

The weekend saw Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Hajj and Umrah launch an innovative Hajj platform and smart card to link processes and services of all ministry sectors.

Each pilgrim will be issued with Smart ID cards containing their personal, medical, and residential information.

In addition to its role in lowering the illegal pilgrimage, the card will contribute to directing pilgrims to their accommodation at the holy sites and monitor access to it and to various other facilities.

These initiatives are launched as part of the proposals suggested at the Makkah Cultural Forum.

Near-field communication (NFC), which is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that lets NFC-enabled devices communicate with each other operates the card system.

It also authorizes the card to be read through the Kiosk self-service devices deployed at the holy sites, and the card includes a barcode that holds the pilgrim’s data.

Considered one of the outcomes of Vision 2030 initiatives, the implementation of the initiative proved to be a successful model for the application of technologies in serving pilgrims.

One of the first participants with the smart card initiative in the Makkah Cultural Forum of 2020. The ministry will be activate the smart cards during the Hajj season of 2021. The card was used during the Hajj season of 2019 on an experimental basis, with distribution of 50,000 cards among a section of pilgrims.

The card will be administered through a unified center to control all services