All fingerprints of American non-immigrant visa applicants need to be scanned.

The State Council announced in the Federal Gazette on the 20th that non-immigrant visa applicants need to have their fingerprints scanned. In addition to verifying the identity of the applicant, this scanning is also used to check the background information to determine whether the applicant has obtained a visa or entered the United States under a different name before. The State Council will use this as the basis for evaluating whether to approve its non-immigrant visa. The new regulations will take effect on the 20th.

According to Sing Tao Daily, according to this regulation, most non-immigrant visa applicants need to have their fingerprints scanned, but there are some exceptions, such as people under 14 and people over 79.

It is necessary to amend the laws and regulations on non-immigrant visa application this time, because the current laws do not contain the general requirements for such applicants to provide fingerprints. According to the provisions of "Strengthening Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act" in 2002, as early as 2004, the Immigration Bureau announced the requirement of collecting fingerprint information of most non-immigrant visa applicants through the biometric visa program. At that time, the technical level could only scan the fingerprints of two fingers, and later it was expanded to ten fingers.

Since the "Biometric Visa Program" has been fully implemented, non-immigrant visa applicants have begun to accept fingerprint scanning, so this amendment has no practical impact on applicants, but only fills the legal gap.