New fingerprint requirements set for visits to Schengen countries

TIRANA, Sept. 15 – The European Union has announced that starting Sept. 25, all Schengen States’ consulates in Albania will use the Visa Information System (VIS), which means that applicants for a short-stay visa will be required to give their fingerprints.
As VIS relates exclusively to short-stay Schengen visas, and Albanian citizens holding a biometric passport will not be affected and will be able to continue to enjoy visa-free short-stay travel to Schengen countries.
However, according to the Delegation of the European Union to Albania, residents in Albania who – due to their nationality – fall under the Schengen visa requirement will be subject to the VIS procedure.
VIS is a central database for the exchange of data on short-stay (up to 3 month) visas between authorities of the Schengen States.
The introduction of the VIS in the Western Balkans and Turkey on 25 September 2014 follows its earlier deployment across the world since October 2011, most recently in May 2014 in Central and North America, the Caribbean and Australasia.
With VIS, first-time visa applicants will have to appear in person when lodging an application in order to provide their digital photograph and fingerprints. These biometric data, along with data provided in the visa application form, guarantee safe, accurate and efficient procedures.
Strict data protection rules are defined in the VIS Regulation and their implementation is supervised by national and European data protection authorities. Any person has the right to obtain communication of the data recorded in the VIS related to him/her from the Schengen State which entered the data into the system. Any person may also request that inaccurate data related to him/ her be corrected and that data unlawfully recorded be deleted, according the official statement.