Visa Outsourcing Market

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Consular Outsourcing & Visa Services- The

Unknown Billion Dollar Market
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 Alexander Schellong
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Provides key insights about outsourcing of consular activities by governments from a
government and provider perspective. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/consular-outsourcing-
visa-services-unknown-billion-dollar-schellong?trk=pulse_spock-articles
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Consular Outsourcing & Visa Services-
The Unknown Billion Dollar Market
Published on
December 7, 2016
Many of you love to travel. Fortunately, the world truly opened up to travel and trade
over the past 30 years. Destinations
requesting visa decreased to 61% in 2015 (from
75% in 1980).
To check your requirements check the
Visa Restriction Index
. However,
today ease of travel is challenged by the sheer volumes of people, security concerns
(
foreign terrorist fighters
, terrorism, organized crime), irregular immigration and new
rise of nationalism. This means that visas won't go away anytime soon. Stamps and visa
stickers eventually will go but not the pre-travel identification processes. Governments
will therefore continue to seek help managing visa applications at consular sections and
at borders around the world. A global market that is worth over a billion dollars. It has
been controlled by a few and dominated by one company for a decade. Consider this
your primer to the business, key government and commercial perspectives and where it
might head next.
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Alexander Schellong
Director Business Transformation at Algeco Scots
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Consular Outsourcing & Visa Services- The Unknown Billion Dollar Ma...
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Outsourcing of consular processes by governments have received little attention by the
public, researchers or investors. Even within the foreign service of many countries, few
officers with comprehensive knowledge of consular outsourcing beyond their own
programs exist. Those tasked with managing consular outsourcing for their local
mission or a global program, or include them in updates to their country's border and
immigration policy will find little publicly available information.!
The Growth of People's Travel & Movement
2012 marked the point in time when over 1 billion humans traveled annually for
business, leisure or to immigrate. According to the United Nations’ World Tourism
Organization (UNWTO) the world has seen a continuous growth of travel despite
occasional shocks for six decades (e.g. 1950 = 25 M travelers). By 2030, 1.8 bn
travelers are projected to roam the globe annually.
At the same time, the number of asylum seekers to the 44 industrialized countries
monitored by the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) rose by 28% to 612,700 in 2013 and
to 866,000 in 2014. That excludes the number of people not making it into government
statistics. The 20-year low in refugees was recorded in 2006 with around 307,000.
Between 40-60 million people were considered displaced in 2014 as a result of conflicts
or natural disasters. That rose 10% to 65.3 M in 2015 — Syria, Afghanistan and
Somalia — accounted for more than half of the refugees.
Finally, given the role of the perception of and debate about net migration to the UK or
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the analysis and interactive simulation
(sample figure below) by Max Galka.
Regulating Mobility: States, Visas & Passports
Over centuries, states have monopolized the right to authorize and regulate the
movement of people. Procedures to identify and mark people are essential to this
monopoly, differentiating between citizens, foreigners, immigrants and refugees.
Consider the underlying purpose of passports and visas for the state and its holders:
Holder
Right to move freely
Proof of nationality
Proof of identity
Right to assistance
Protection from expulsion
Right to stay in a foreign country
State
Prevent departure of its citizens
Stimulate departure of its citizens
Control entrance/movement of aliens
Control activities of aliens
Monitor movement
Track down individuals
Impose fees / generate revenues
Bargaining factor in diplomatic relations (e.g. EU <> Turkey)
Despite advances in technology; passports, visa stickers and stamps continue to form
the basis between state and individual to determine the orderly right to cross borders. To
get a visa, one has to provide a multitude of documents (e.g. hotel/airline reservation,
invitation letters) that not always make sense.
Besides general cooperation in the international community,
ICAO
, a UN body with
over 180 member states, plays a crucial role in defining the future of passports and visas
since 1946. ePassport or machine readable travel document (MRTD) standards (LDS
ver. 2.0) currently finalized should allow storing visas and entry/exit stamps throughout
the lifetime of the next generation of passports.
These will be complemented by the existing practice of sharing commercial Passenger
Name Record (PNR) and Advanced Passenger Information (API) (basic MRTD + basic
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homeland security related monitoring of international travel was underlined in
resolution 2178 adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to combat “foreign
terrorist fighters” (FTF). Among others it called upon airlines to provide advance
passenger information to detect the travel of UN-listed terrorists.
API is usually cross checked with security data bases (e.g. no-fly lists, watch lists,
SLTD), the former is
subject to debate due to concerns of privacy advocates
and
between countries as
PNR data
hosted in Amadeus, Navitare or Sabre includes large
amount of PII (e.g. email adresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers, special meal
requirements, IP adresses, travel itinerary, changes, language) flows through various
servers/countries that allows for profiling and multi-source correlation analysis. This
infrastructure could complement our future vision of easy and seamless international
travel.
Managing the Growth of Travelers
Governments developed and implemented a variety of measures to manage and
facilitate the growth in people’s movement: From streamlining visa processing at
consulates and changing visa requirements (e.g. visa waiver programs,
ESTA
) to
introducing other forms of travel authorization such as trusted traveler programs (e.g.
Global Entry
, TSA PreCheck), offering visa on arrival, electronic visas or improving
border processes (e.g. automatic border control, biometric passports).
Due to the limited capacity in consular sections (e.g. space, staff, budget), security
concerns (e.g. having applicants enter embassy premises) and to increase consular
officers’ efficiency by focusing on the adjudication process, governments also
started to outsource non-essential consular processes such as responding to
information inquiries, fee collection, scheduling appointments; collecting,
checking and returning data/documents to external providers about 20-25 years
ago.
In parallel a growing number of visa application facilitation companies formed an
industry around the globe as people continue to struggle with visa requirements,
immigration laws, forms, Internet access or proximity to consulates.
The dark side of the visa service industry
Most of these companies are legitimate (e.g. law firms, call centers, travel agents, local
visa services companies in the vicinity of consulates); some however are the opposite.
They take advantage of information asymmetries, poor (IT) infrastructure, poor
customer service/orientation by consulates, local citizens working in missions, and
applicants’ fears---Yes, citizens around the world are afraid to do anything wrong that
could cost them their visa. It's something some people within the foreign service of a
country find hard to understand as they never have "to endure" their own processes.
Classically, visa vendors sell documents/services that are not needed (e.g. medical
examinations, incorrect visa fees, forms) or provide counterfeit documents (e.g.
passports, diplomas, pictures, false relatives/kids, false companies/industry association,
invitation letters). Services charges can be anywhere from a $1 to more than $20,000.
Visa vendors show no limit in creativity and flexibility in making some money. When
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making $5-10 of every applicant with xeroxed payment slips that was supposed to be
"necessary" for an appointment. In other places vendors even rent out vehicle titles
including battered car keys to the visa applicant by the hour or day. Alternatively,
vendors run professional looking "official" websites that offer exclusive services with
the "blessing" of the local mission. Their search engine optimization (SEO) work is so
sophisticated that their sites are among the top ten search results in Google. Or consider
the visa vendor that developed scheme of paying and canceling visa fee payments with
credit cards of the applicants in combination with fraudulent charging activities on those
cards at a later stage. The boldest effort to date is a
fake U.S. mission including two
satellite offices, a U.S. flag, weekly opening hours, picture of President Obama, etc. run
by Ghanian and Turkish citizens in Ghana's capital Accra for about 10 years
until the
Regional Security Office (RSO) and domestic law enforcement shut it down late
November 2016.
If a government has a weak online appointment system or application process, visa
vendors will block appointments for months and resell them for several thousand
dollars. They might hire an army of low cost workers to just book appointments
online/via call center or employ more sophisticated computer "hacking" type methods
or automated scripts. This is not only a nuisance to applicants but to consular sections as
well due to high no-show rates and dissatisfied applicants. Along these lines, visa
vendors themselves do not always understand visa application processes or changes to
them which can lead to a lot of confusion on the applicant side and disruption of daily
applicant processing in the consular section (or all of a mission's externally facing
phone numbers - if the applicant experience is designed poorly, they will find numbers
and call them relentlessly).
Of course some applicants are happy to use these services in conjunction with other
deceptive behavior to increase their chances of getting a visa. Once denied by a country
they will try to go "visa shopping" at the consulate of a different country (quite common
for EU Schengen) to reach their desired location.
Finally, both mission and consular outsourcing provider need to constantly watch out
for fraudulent activities among staff and subcontractors. At the same time you also need
to watch out for the safety of your staff working at embassies as they have become
targets of choice for terrorist attacks in some countries.
Structure of consular outsourcing / service concession procurement
Government procurement's' for consular outsourcing are structured in different ways.
They mostly differ by territorial scope, contract duration, remuneration type and service
exclusivity. Governments outsource a single country, a geographic region or global
consular operations. Usually a mission handles service procurement for a single country.
Special units within a respective ministry of foreign affairs / department of sate handle
larger contracts and might provide guidance to missions. Global contracts are split up in
"task orders" or "lots" that combine a set of countries that share similarities (e.g.
geography, languages) or that combine high with low volume applicant countries. The
latter is important to ensure the service provider is able to run financially sustainable
operations, especially when physical infrastructure (= visa application centers) are
expected. Duration of contracts range from three to ten years and tend to include
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quality.
Remuneration of service providers either comes in the form of fixed government fees
per processed applicant or as direct applicant fees. The latter is the most common form
of service provider funding. Fees might be capped at certain levels (e.g.
EU visa codex
sets the maximum at 50% of the short term visa fee, currently 30 Euro
), pre-defined
(e.g. a Middle Eastern country sets different rates for religious, business travelers,
varying by country, China's fee is 65.45 EUR) or uncapped but driven down by service
providers during the bidding process. Fees might be adjusted on an annual basis, as
volumes go up or down, or escalate in longer term fixed price contracts. Besides service
fees, governments allow service providers to offer value added services (VAS) such as
express home delivery/pick-ups, premium waiting lounges (with e.g. nicer seating,
drinks, dedicated service staff), photo copies, photo booth or website advertisements.
Each service and fee usually requires approval by the local mission, the ministry of
foreign affairs or both. I am only aware of one government, which asked service
providers to share a specific amount of the value added service revenues.
Existing visa application processes and regulations determine the type and degree of
services that are and or can be outsourced. Many countries issue visas remotely based
on a number of documents while others require documents, an interview between
applicant and consular officer; and the submission of biometrics (facial/fingerprint)
before arrival for any visa type.
Once biometrics have been captured, frequent travelers (also referred to as bona fide
travelers) only need to submit their passport via mail instead of coming to a consular
post. Some governments allow applicants that travel as tourists or short-term business
travelers to receive a visa on arrival from authorities at the port of entry or issue an
electronic travel authorization (ETA). An ETA is equivalent to a visa but does not
require a stamp or label in people’s passports (e.g.
U.S. ESTA
, EU
ETIAS
or
Australia’s
electronic visa
). Usually applicants provide certain information online that is then
accessible by border agencies or airlines besides other data such as
passenger name
records (PNR) or Advanced Pessenger Information (API)
.
Visas differ by way of issuance, amount of allowed entries, type (there are more than
shown in the below figure), length of stay and fees.
The Visa Application Process Value Chain
In general, the visa application process value chain consists of four major elements:
application, verification, decision and document return. Except for the decision whether
an issue will be issued to an individual or not, all elements shown can and are fully or
partly outsourced already. Consulates around the world employ security cleared locals
to support officers in the day-to-day consular operations. Many times!it’s the local third
country nationals that tend to provide consistency in the consular section when
diplomatic personnel moves from post to post around the world every 2-4 years. From
an outsourcing company perspective, each process step is different in terms of risk or
margin potential.!Information services (via premium telephone numbers) and faster
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especially if the other!processes are costly or operate at cost level.
Procurement Process
Procurement for consular business process outsourcing / service concessions can take
up to a year or longer depending on the contract size. Award decisions tend to be based
on: price, solution quality, references/past performance, origin/ government security
clearances of service provider or volume distribution.
As is common in government contracting, the bidder with the lowest price wins the
contract as long as solution quality/risk are the appropriate level. Consular and
contracting officers tend to have two common concerns about price (the service fee).
First, that service fees are too high and may burden the taxpayer (government paid
model). Second, that service fees are at an unaffordable level for is applicants (user pay
model) and as such leads to disgruntled customers (policy / reputation dimension). The
latter argument sometimes contradicts consular outsourcing operational cost realities.
Especially if the government asks for complex or innovative support services, a physical
presence (visa application center) in central locations of large cities (office, single
building, embassy like compound) or operations are marked by high volatility of
applicant volumes. Moreover, if collected visa fees or general travel costs (flights,
hotels, rental car, daily food expenses) to the desired country are on the higher end,
service fees of 10 to 40 Euros are a fraction at 0.X-3% of the total travel costs for the
applicant.
Given the state of the consular outsourcing market today, government procurement
officers are advised to review other operations of participating vendors in a country and
the opportunities of cross-financing. Any incumbent that runs consular operations for
multiple missions in one country has cost and risk advantages that new or smaller
market entrants can not compete with if they want to ensure financially sound
operations. Many times local operations are not run by the outsourcing provider but
instead by local partners. Sometimes the number of local reliable partners is limited to
one or two companies. Major outsourcing companies will try to gain a competitive
advantage by locking them in through exclusivity agreements. If that is not possible
they end up partnering with everyone one which means a new outsourcing provider
might only bring in a new IT system or governance structure but everything else stays
the same (e.g. staff, office space, document delivery firm).
Past performance/references in the field of consular outsourcing are mandatory to pass
request for information (RFI) phases and final selection. That creates a a barrier to
market entry for new companies.
Origin / government security clearances can be a factor to exclude service providers
from the final selection. Several governments limit awards to prime contractors that
originate from the same country as the procuring government due to security clearance /
trust reasons even though these firms can not operate in many countries without
utilizing local subcontractors as outlined above.
Take for example the Indian government that outsourced it's global operations to several
Indian firms, which provided them with a healthy basis to go after other government
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capabilities to operate globally which led to service quality issues and re-tendering (e.g.
BLS International for the Indian mission in the US). I have set in on a few Q&A
sessions with Indian missions and went through some of their open tenders for consular
& Indian passport services that ultimately resulted in an award to the Indian firms. I
noted some inconsistencies between RFPs in different countries (likely a copy&paste
issue), differences in requirements wording and expectations for actual operations, no
account of the impact of looking tourist visa-on-arrival program on viable vendor
business model or communication behavior between mission and some vendors during
the tender process.
A few governments--especially if missions handle procurement--try to support local
businesses that participate in the tender as a diplomacy component. For example,
Germany outsourced to a variety of outsourcing firms at the mission level considering
the response of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs to a
small parliamentary inquiry
of the opposition party "Die Linke" from 2011
in contrast its Indian or European peers.
Lately many companies have been replaced by Germany's online appointment system
(RK-Visa).
Most governments have moved to a central procurement process rather than the mission
level. This takes the burden from the mission and reduces the risk of errors or corruption
in the procurement process. However, a central procurement is also considered a risk by
government managers. Imagine the situation when the political level demands an end to
an outsourcing program because of issues in a limited number of countries.
The $2 bn consular services market
Global travel continues to take place within a region (e.g. Americas, Europe, Middle
East,) but
UNWTO
predicts it to grow specifically in Asia Pacific (APAC), Africa and
the Middle East. Many countries in those regions still have a visa restriction, which
makes them core countries for governments to ask for consular support services.
However, while the later regions have a growing number of applicants, its other source
countries that generate the largest volumes.
Russia produces over 6 M for
EU Schengen
(especially tourist for destinations such
as France, Italy) while
Mexico is the major source country for the U.S.
with over 1.2 M
applicants a year. For Japan; China, Philippines and Indonesia accounted for
around 80
% of their 2.8 M visas
(2014). Compare that to the
20 M (2014) foreigners coming to
China
that required a visa and are managed by Chinese outsourcing organizations.
Assuming all of the European country visa volumes are outsourced at the maximum
service rate of 30 EUR without value added services (VAS) such as express home
delivery, it would result in around $ 710 M revenue annually.
Adding baseline consular outsourcing activities for US, Australia, New Zealand and UK
already creates
a consular outsourcing market worth $1 bn+ in revenue
. Add visa
volumes for China, Saudia Arabia, the services by smaller companies for 100+
countries that have no official outsourcing partner and a multitude of VAS the market
size grows to $2 bn+.
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ecosystem relative a to supply and demand perspective. Consular service companies do
not only work for government clients. They may also work for airlines, cruise lines or
tour operators to provide a seamless and hassle free travel experience to their clients.
Professional consular outsourcing programs are provided by a few companies with the
Indian
VFS Global
, an entity of Swiss travel company Kuoni (now owned by EQT, a
Swedish private equity firm) started by Zubin Karkaria, dominating core contracts with
51 governments in applicant volume generating countries (see figures below) globally.
The below list shows the major providers and government contract holders in the
market:
VFS Global / Kuoni -
(EU, UK, Canada, U.S., Australia, India, Saudi Arabia)
CSRA (formerly CSC)
(U.S., Canada, Australia, Germany)
CGI (formerly Stanley Associates)
(U.S. - VFS Global as subcontractor)
Teleperformance / TLS contact
(UK, Australia, New Zealand, EU)
TUI / TT Services
(sold to Cinven, UK PE firm) (Australia, NZ, Ethiad Airways)
Gerry’s
(BPO operations for various missions in Pakistan)
Cox & Kings Global Services
(India, Japan, UAE, Thailand, Vietnam)
IVS Global
(India)
BLS International
(India, Israel, Hungary, Spain)
CITS V SERVICE
(CVASC) (China)
CIBT
(general visa services for governments that do not outsource)
To better understand market share, I took s
tatistical data published by DG Migration &
Home Affairs
about issued C visa (short-term stay, single, double or multiple entry used
for tourism and business) in 2013 and combined it with data from VFS and TLS. VFS
covered around 60% of the annual volume of 17.2 M issued Schengen visas. In some of
the top 20 application source countries VFS covers between 80-95% (UAE, India,
Russia) of the total issued C visa volume for all of the EU Schengen countries. In
comparison TLS covered 10% of all issued EU Schengen visa, controlling the main
source countries that apply for French EU Schengen visa.
Comparing outsourced consular service coverage with the total application volume of
each EU country underlines that VFS Global not only controlled the major volumes in
source countries but also up to 97% of the total volumes of applications for certain
countries in 2013. Volume coverage is also an indicator for the different outsourcing
approaches of the EU countries (e.g. single source global vs. multi-source
global/regional contract).
To understand the potential of the business, let's continue with the VFS Global case.
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strong CGAR of the business but also its profitability relative to other travel business
units of greater revenue size. In other words, VFS Global only represented 4% of
Kuoni's revenue but made up over 25% of Kuoni's EBITA in FY12 and FY13. Despite
the fact that VFS Global already had complex operations in FY12/13 in 100+ countries
with 1000+ physical visa application centers, 10+ call centers and 2000+ employees, it
operated at a 16/17% EBITA margin while Kuoni's traditional travel business units
returned a 3-4% EBITA margin.
Mergers, technology and new business opportunities in consular outsourcing and
visa services
Major high-volume, multi-year government contracts are currently not up for rebid or
are restricted to certain providers. Accordingly, actors in the commercial consular
outsourcing market can be expected to hold their relative position. Achieving significant
business growth or challenging the market leader in such a situation is difficult and
further complicated by loss of applicant volumes through sanctions, crisis or visa
liberalization for some countries. Below are some options and expected market
activities in the near future:
EU countries that have not done so moving to a global consular outsourcing model
Should the EU or other countries exercise a fundamental change to the common
practice of only allowing asylum applications inside of their territory, consular
outsourcing providers could offer to setup and operate refugee processing centers in
selected countries by themselves or in partnership with NGO’s, even on a temporary
basis in case of a surge. Both Denmark and Germany have suggested setting up
these
EU "hotspots"
in Tunisia or Egypt. I have outlined how
managed offsite
refugee processing & support centers here
.
Governments expand biometric capturing and interviewing operations for trusted
traveler programs outside their borders. The interviewing could be done remotely by
government officers while the other parts of the operation are handled by a
subcontractor.
Governments with major contracts start to exclude long-term outsourcing contract
holders in rebids so that volumes are reshuffled.
Governments outsource passport related services or any other service that require
appointments and information provision. For example Indian passport services
remain an attractive business in some countries to offset tourist visa declines due to
the Indian VOA program.
Governments introduce mobile visa application programs whereby applications and
biometrics are collected flexibly in various locations.
Governments expand and outsource background checks so that providers use open
source intelligence and commercial databases (e.g. credit bureaus) to provide a more
comprehensive picture of applicants to government officials in the adjudication
phase.
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expected to travel as economic activity picks up. Approximately 200,000 Iranians
applied for short-term Schengen visas in 2015. Many more Iranian’s would apply
for U.S. visas if they could apply directly in Iran instead of traveling twice to UAE,
Turkey or Armenia for their interview and pick-up of their visa. Western consular
sections considered in-country outsourcing solutions but did not realize them due to
sanctions and corruption in the past.
Consolidation of visa service provider landscape for any government especially
those that never solicited professional consular outsourcing services (e.g. African
nations). This would either require the acquisition of key visa service providers in
multiple countries and aligning them under one brand or alternatively the aggressive
roll out of a new visa service venture that works more efficient than the rest of the
market. Interestingly, these visa services will also be able to generate revenue by
working as an intermediary between applicant and the official consular outsourcing
provider.
Forging a new consular outsourcing provider that is able to work for all
governments through a buy out of consular outsourcing business units of e.g.
CGI/CSRA to cover major U.S. volume and combining it with consular outsourcing
only companies such as TT Services to cover non-US clients and a smaller firm that
e.g. provides services to the Indian government. Given their existing activities, this
could create a counterweight to VFS Global with major volumes and operations
around the world.
Integrate visa services in existing upstream booking procedures in the tourism
industry (e.g. airlines, cruises, global and regional OTA) or B2B business expense &
travel management platforms such as SAP’s Concur through partnerships. Such a
partnership and integration would provide exclusive access to large amount of travel
transactions of its 30 million users that include the need for a visa and would no
longer go to the domestic visa service provider community.
The online U.S. ESTA and DS-160 visa application form presents a challenge to
many applicants globally. Applicants will not only clog a mission’s publicly
available phone numbers and email addresses with their questions. They are also
easy prey for coyote vendors. In addition, their errors lead to additional workload in
the consular section. An--in a best case U.S. government approved--online and call
center service reachable globally for a reasonable fee could be mutually beneficial to
all parties. Prices could vary by country to challenge the business model of coyote’s
and meet local purchasing power realities.
Several consular outsourcing providers have developed multi-channel platforms that
combine functionality such as user registration, appointment scheduling, call center
services, document delivery and payment; and subcontractor relationships around
that world that are of value to business operations in other industries. Consular
outsourcing providers could offer their services to these firms following cloud
computing business models thereby charging a monthly subscription or user fee. In
addition, the platform could be customized to other domestic government agencies
that handle large volumes of citizens and require appointments. Finally, an advanced
and modularized multi-channel platform could be offered to the competition with
the aim to consolidate systems in use among visa outsourcing contracts.
Develop or buy out technology (providers/business units/products) that serve
governments in the niche of consular affairs and border management or biometrics
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EUR 85 M operations). For example, VFS Global despite IT security issues in its
early years of operation is moving in that direction. They provided an IT solution for
remote applicant video interviewing to the UK government, a solution called ELVIS
for a remote shared service center for visa processing in multiple locations in Russia
for Finland or filled patents for self-service kiosks (
WO2013098851
).
Beyond business - Ideas to improve the secure international travel
Visa applications that require any form of physical interaction disrupt the trend and
expectation of travelers for a seamless self-service travel experience regardless of the
device. Digital scenarios come to mind but we should not underestimate the lack of
infrastructure in many source countries of high applicant volumes. Below are some
ideas:
Online visa downloads / Enhanced smartphone passport app. Instead of a visa
sticker, a visa is associated with your passport on your target country's system. You
might even download it to your smartphone like flight ticket. It could warn you of
overstays and other visa policy related issues (e.g. if frequent travels to a country
might alter your visa status) or be stored on your passport including entry/exit
date/time.
Multi(modal) biometrics (finger, picture, ocular-based) are expected to overcome the
limitations of each one of them and improve reliability to enable new forms of
identification. They are linked to central systems to enable other forms of
application at border crossing points, trusted service centers or with homeland
security.
Passport cloud. Your validated data is stored in a government cloud that speaks to
another government's border management systems. Rather than taking your passport
with you, your biometric information is the only aspect being checked at the time of
crossing the border (e.g. boarding a plane). Such a solution which certainly be a key
target for cyber criminals.
Instead of investing in infrastructure and personell to capture biometrics and
conduct interviews, governments could copy the approach already employed by
some banks. People can activate accounts via webcam and a picture of their national
ID card/ passport. One could transfer fingerprints captured by technology such as
Apple's touch ID in front of the officer on a webcam. Telco providers or postal
providers could be included in this approach as well as an additional source to
confirm an identity. At the time of arrival border crossing an ocular-based scan
complements the biometric profile of an individual while face/finger biometrics are
crossed checked against those remotely captured.
Similar to the EU or GCC, more countries form circles of trust and information
sharing that allow citizens to travel with their national ID or no ID at all.
Outsourcing consular operations to a provider is a big change for a foreign office and
the people in a mission. It can provide value for applicants and consular officers. It is
however not without flaw. Its a mission critical people business relying on many
components and factors that are sometimes impossible to control. In a perfect world, we
would not need visas and identification to breeze through countries but that is an utopia.
There are however ways to improve the experience and the visa service industry has the
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Government Consular Outsourcing

Citizen Relationship Management

The potential role of the erbium: YAG laser in skin rejuvenation †*

Wavelength dependence of the mechanisms governing the formation of

August 2018 · Optics Express

Effect of the vibration‐translation transfer rate on laser‐induced frequency chirp

June 1990 · Applied Physics Letters

Electric fields of a laser spark generated by heating radiation with various

An experimental investigation was made of the spatiotemporal structure of electric fields of a

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