Job Discussion Forums

[father Mackenzie]

I have been told that at the airport all visitors entering Indonesia are now being finger printed and eye scanned after getting their tourist visa.
I can imagine this will add to the confusion only Hatto airport has to offer anyone arriving here. I wonder if the kittens running around inside the place have been security checked?

[malu]

I think someone has been pulling your leg, father. The only people that get iris scanned are those who subscribe to the Sapphire fast track service.

As for the kittens, they seem to thrive at CGK and it won't be long before they have kittens of their own.

[Kanga]

Seems Like Father Mackenzie might have been a little psychic on this one. Fingerprint scanning (at least..) is now all the go at Soekarno Hatta Airport. Expect delays from about one to two hours as you pass through.

[malu]

Indeed, Father M is quite correct about fingerprint scans. Finally spoke to a friend who works at the Brit embassy and he confirmed that Visa On Arrival tourists not only have to pay their fee but also have their dabs taken and are photographed on a computer that calculates the biometric used in many 'chip' passports including new UK and US ones. At the entry channel the tourist's passport is swiped through the reader and if it is a chip passport the data in the chip is compared with the photo just taken. Iris-scan technology is not used at this stage.

This procedure will become standard practice in most countries soon but, as usual, the authorities at CGK have come up with the most laborious and time-consuming way to do it. The proper way to do it, apparently, is to have a camera and print scanner on each entry channel (i.e. 20 of them) rather than one or two at the VOA desks, and there really is no point scanning people who don't have a chip passport and no point in taking fingerprints if fingerprint data is not stored in your chip passport (which it isn't in UK ones).

Apparently the computer keeps breaking down and when this happens things speed up considerably as people are just waved through.

[basiltherat]

[travelNteach]

fingerprints are still valuable because if they are lifted from the scene of a crime or off a dead body, they can be run thru interpool or fbi data bases.

photos are worthwhile. in thailand, they take your photo on arrival, and that is how they caught that canadian pedo that ran from where he was teaching in korea and attempted to hide in thailand where he had committed his crimes.

i will be going thru the airport next week, so i will have a chance to see how it works. but if memory serves me correctly, there is a single file to pay your voa fee, it so should take more that a few more seconds to scan someones thumbprint and take their photo, provided they have a computer with a high enough processor and ram. yeah, they could put those machines at each entry channel, but as they already have the photos and fingerprints of all indo citizens and kitas holders. maybe they could make a couple of special channels just for VAT tourists

[travelNteach]

immigration must have been listening to malu. they now have the cameras and fingerprint scanners installed at every immigration counter. they only took my photo. not sure if this is because i have a kitas and my fingerprints are on file or because they havent been installed yet. either way, didnt really slow up the process much. pretty much like thailand

[Eva_madison]

Thanks for the update, it's good to know that the process seems to be going okay at least.

[malu]

They have taken out the scanners at Ngurah Rai airport in Bali because the 30 seconds or so that they add to checks caused already long lines to extend to several hours at peak times. There were cases of people arriving on 2300 flights and not getting out of the airport until 0300.