Sri Lanka is preparing to begin issuing biometric passports with electronic chips embedded as of January, 2025, according to a statement from the Department of Immigration and Emigration.
A preregistration process for Sri Lankans applying for the new passports is now open. The country has also introduced online passport applications to ease the process for people living outside of Colombo.
A contract to issue 5 million biometric passports was tendered in January.
Meanwhile air travel volumes in Sri Lanka are increasing, and SITA says they will hit pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year.
SITA CEO David Lavorel tells EconomyNext that Sri Lanka’s airport agency, immigration department and airlines are taking a unified approach to dealing with the higher volumes. Among the actions taken so far, Sri Lankan Airlines has deployed self-service kiosks from SITA, and the company sees biometrics adoption as one of the natural next steps to speed up airport processes in the country.
Some of the upgrades could take two years, however, he says.
Japan and the IOM are supporting Sri Lanka in acquiring biometric access control and ABC gates at sea and airports.
