Fingerprinting for Libyan visas?
 

Just read on the official UK FCO that from the 1st Dec you will need to turn up at the embassy and get fingerprinted.

From the FCO site “The Libyan Government has announced that it intends to introduce a new visa system requiring visa-applicants to submit their biometric details, effective from 1 December 2008. Applicants will be required to attend the Libyan People's Bureau to give their fingerprints and submit the required documents and passport photos”

The guy who answers the phone at the London embassy didn’t seem to know anything about this and just said “you come as normal?”

Does anybody else know anything about this?

I presume that such regulation would not affect the tourists (who are only travelling on invitation and receive a stamp upon entry) but only the business travellers. Would advice you to check with your travel agency before you contact the Libyan embassy.

(And let's hope that above is correct ;-))

I have heard from a Libyan tour specialist that biometric data will be required for business visa apps from December; she didnt mention tourists - maybe the FCO have got it a bit wrong.
As I understand it, it's the biz apps they are after this time but the tourists who are also paying for it by being grouped into 5s.

Ch

Many thanks for the replies.

Just needing this for Business apps would be good news. Neither of the Libyan TO’s we use seem know anything about this applying to Tourist Visas either, so fingers crossed it looks like the UK FOC have got their wires crossed again.

(I read this on the FOC site this morning and thought “No – not more hoops…” That will teach me to surf the web first thing in the morning!)