Absher is an online platform with a smartphone app developed by the Ministry of Interior for accessing government services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The platform caters to individuals, businesses, and the government and serves the digital government's targets by providing about 279 electronic services to citizens and residents, including ten sectors of the Ministry of Interior. By 2022, more than twenty-seven million users in the Kingdom had benefited from the platform.
In Arabic, Absher is a term indicative of glad tidings or good, joyful news. In the local Saudi dialect, the term is used to connote a speedy response to a request in the fullest sense. Absher is the Kingdom's first e-service platform, designated as a colloquial term.
Role of Absher
Absher platform accelerates and enhances the efficiency of electronic transactions, interlinks user data between entities, and facilitates the implementation of governmental services with minimal paperwork. It takes about three minutes to conduct a service via Absher, and the platform saves an estimated SAR15 billion annually in conventional transaction costs.
The platform enables beneficiaries to access the services of the following agencies: the General Directorate of Passports; the Ministerial Agency of Civil Affairs; the General Department of Traffic; the General Directorate of Public Security; Public Prosecution; the General Directorate of Prisons; the Ministry of Municipal, Rural Affairs, and Housing; the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah; and the General Directorate of Expatriate Affairs.
Absher’s main services include booking appointments, requesting official documents, and following up and inquiring about requests and transactions. The digital platform’s services are supported by some four hundred self-service machines distributed in public places around the Kingdom, offering various services such as registration, activation of accounts, and updating figures, sixty-eight of which are located in the capital, Riyadh.
The platform has another business-class service portal, joining some 520,000 establishments, that provides about fourteen services, including issuing and renewing workers’ residency permits, issuing exit and return visas, requesting residents' reports and amending their occupancy, transferring services, and delivering documents by post.
The services of the Absher Platform are available to individuals and businesses after registering on the site and then activating the user account via self-service machines or bank branches across the Kingdom.
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