Fingerprints Taken For Retirement Visa

[Milostar]

Fingerprints taken for retirement visa

I have an retirement visa and had renewal last year . When i asked the same person to renew again for me next week, she told me i had to go with her to immigration office as the new rule is that they need to take fingerprints for renewal of visa .......

Did anyone hear about this ? Is this correct ?

[lothda]

//removed by moderator

Complete nonsense. The fingerprints are being taken for some time now, though.

[gotlost]

No finger prints in Chiang Mai.

[zombie]

I went for an extension for supporting Thai wife this week, and they took my photo and scanned my fingers -thumbs and index fingers of both hands. This was done

at the desk of the immigration official handling our application after my wife was interviewed. The camera and fingerprint scanner were on his desk. This was at Chaeng Wattana.

[thaiphoon]

Several posts have been deleted/amended to remove incorrect information.

[tropo]

Several posts have been deleted/amended to remove incorrect information.

Good idea. April Fool's Day has gone on long enough.

[simmons9]

Hard to grasp clarification with all the deleted/modified posts so just that I am clear, is this fingerprinting only currently being done in Bangkok? Our local office, like Chiang Mai in a previous post, hasn't previously.

Is this something that they are phasing in nation-wide, beginning in Bangkok?

[lopburi3]

It started about six months ago in Bangkok (testing status) with the new computer system hookup at Suan Phlu but has taken time to get set up at the new location. Expect if it works out it will become nation wide at some point.

[Tod Daniels]

Just before the old Thai Immigrations location in Bangkok; Suan Plu closed I accompanied several people to secure their yearly extensions of stay based on retirement. The fingerprint scanners and digital cameras were up and running much better than they were when first rolled out for testing earlier; (when they experienced quite a bit of 'operator error', I think due to lack of training). The last time they scanned both index fingers, and took a digital picture as well as copied all a person's information into the computer which was printed out on another TM-7 which the applicant then signed.

Just a couple weeks ago I was at the new location for Thai Immigrations in Bangkok; Changwattana to secure my yearly extension of stay based on retirement. They had the fingerprint scanners and digital cameras set up on all the desks but they weren't hooked up, so no fingerprinting/photo.

I went for an extension for supporting Thai wife this week, and they took my photo and scanned my fingers -thumbs and index fingers of both hands.

In regards to the above snippet where it says he had his fingers -thumbs and index fingers scanned for an extension of stay based on marriage, I have no clue why there is a discrepancy between that and an extension based on retirement. Also that post is more than a little ambiguous as the wording of fingers, thumbs and index fingers makes me wonder if they just did a full set of each hand or only the thumb and index finger. FWIW: The people I accompanied last year to Suan Plu only had their index fingers scanned.

In talking to the Immigrations Officer about the system when they first rolled it out, she informed me; at some point it will be used to 'link' ALL the Immigrations offices in the country and eventually after that at all border crossings as well. Pressing her, I asked when this was actually gonna happen, and her answer was, "Not soon; This Is Thailand." (Which I thought was a great answer)

It's good to know that Changwattana has them up and running now, as it's a painless trouble free coupla minutes at most added to your extension of stay process. I am all for any technology which makes them able to retrieve a person’s extension history rather than sending the runner back to the massive file storage area to retrieve a hard copy of a person’s file.