Belgians should soon be fingerprints, hand to request passport

Belgian passport applications will soon have their fingerprints issue. Currently, the required hardware at the municipalities placed. Applying for a passport will be longer take, so warn officials.

In 2011, Belgium decided to introduce biometric passports in order to comply with European directives. These passports contain just as the Dutch copies of a chip in which, among other fingerprint data are stored. Initially these would in 2012 have to be entered, but there is a delay arise. The Gazet van Antwerpen reports, however, that the Belgians will soon have their fingerprints will have to give when applying for a passport are now in almost all municipalities the necessary hardware, including scanners, are placed.

Officials of a number of municipalities to warn citizens that they must take into account the longer waiting times because the application process takes more time. The handling of a request, where a photo is being checked and a citizen, his fingerprints must issue, it would be at least a quarter of an hour to complete. This would make the waiting time can double.

The scanned fingerprints are not stored in a database, so promises to the Belgian government. In the Netherlands it was the introduction of the biometric passport still assumed. Also, the price of a Belgian passport, not go up. The fees remain thus 76,50 euros for an adult and 41 euro for a minor.