Travelers entering or exiting the Kingdom will no longer have to stand in immigration lines as the Passports Department has launched a speedy electronic service for this purpose. Travelers will be issued electronic cards called e-Gate Cards, which can be inserted in an electronic reader at airports. The system will ask travelers to provide journey information and check IDs through biometric features. On completion of the basic information, the system will provide travelers with automatically printed receipts which include arrival or departure information. “Passengers are not required to wait in a queue to get their passports stamped if they use e-Gate Cards. The procedure is simple – head to the e-Gate, swipe your card, touch the panel to match your fingerprint and you are through within five to 10 seconds,” said an official at King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh, where the system is in operation now. He said that currently the e-Gate Card facility is available only at KKIA Terminal 2 for passengers traveling from Saudi Arabian Airlines. Travelers can visit the Registration Center at Gate 2 at King Khaled International Airport where passport officers will check their IDs and feed biometric features, such as fingerprints and iris scans into the system. An e-Gate Card will be issued with the picture of the traveler. E-Gate Cards will soon be introduced at King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) in Dammam. “The E-Gate system is not yet operational at KFIA pending the setting up of a management system with other concerned agencies like the passports and immigration departments,” a KFIA official said. King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) has the capacity to serve annually 2,650,000 passengers on domestic flights and 2,500,000 on international flights.
