Cameroon’s Ministry of External Relations announced the government is planning to issue biometric visas from 2022. “From June 2022, our country intends to issue biometric visas on secure stickers, as well as consular cards, passes, mortuary passes, and many other forgery-proof solemn documents, both at the Ministry of External Relations (Minrex) as well as in diplomatic missions, consular posts and police stations at air, land and sea borders," the ministry posted on Facebook.

This measure, we learn, is part of the modernization of the diplomatic system in the country. It aims in particular to improve the services offered both to Cameroonians in the diaspora and users of consular services, the security of personal data, and the optimization of consular revenues with better traceability of related operations.

The project is being conducted by the Ivorian company Impact Palmarès R&D, which specializes in security activities, identification, recording, and analysis of data and information in the context of safety and internal security of States. A partnership agreement relating to the financing, design, and implementation of the security and standardization of consular services in Cameroon was signed between the two parties on April 1.

The system proposed by this company is already being tested at the Embassy of Cameroon in Côte d'Ivoire since September 2020, concerning biometric visas. "It optimizes and perfects the Diplomat system developed by the New Technologies and Cryptography Unit of the Ministry of External Relations, both in terms of security and data centralization," according to the ministry. The project includes the construction of a Data Center in Yaoundé for the storage and security of data and the deployment of appropriate state-of-the-art equipment in embassies and consulates, as well as at various points of entry into the country.

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