News
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Fingerprints
on passports
Controller T. Jinadasa said the move to include the fingerprint in the passport was proposed to the Ministry of Law and Order and Public Security for implementation as part of the plan to prevent the misuse of passports. Mr. Jinadasa said under the new system the fingerprint would be included in an invisible manner minimizing the chances of tampering with it, unlike the present system where the photographs of the scanned photographs are changed. He said the decision had been taken in the wake of a series of fraudulent cases where passports had been tampered with and were being used for major human trafficking rackets. Mr. Jinadasa said this was part of the series of measures to curb misuse of passports and to further tighten the procedures they would be halting the system of issuing one-day passports with effect from October 1. The one-day service has been lengthened to three days, but the applicants would still have to pay the same rate of Rs. 5,000 for an all country passport and Rs. 2,500 for a West Asia passport. The one-day passport system was in operation for 13 years and netted a large revenue to the government. Under the new system, persons from outstations would have to travel to Colombo to hand over the application and return to collect two days later. |
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