Evolted solutions can speed up the steps not only for the verification of travel documents, but also for their release, including views. This is demonstrated by the example of Dubai, where the bureaucracy is almost pleasant.
After an exhausting international flight, the irrepressible urgency is to leave the airport. But even if you have had the cunning of traveling sparingly, not to send the luggage, a stop remains mandatory in any case: the passport control.
In more and more countries, including the main Italian airports, the “e-gate” have been introduced, the electronic gates that, when they do not be entered, avoid stopping at the counter in front of a human officer.
The frontier is facial recognition, which makes the transit to the border more fluid. Since the end of last year, for example, visitors to Singapore scan their document on arrival and, at the start, must not present it. The face is to pass towards the area of the take -off.
While the technology advances, there are areas in which the past resists, the paper still crushes the digital. It happens for the granting of visas and passports themselves, domination of the bureaucracy between bulletins, administrative marks and assorted retailed of an era that struggles to set.
The result are clogging, expected and poor certainty on when the required will be delivered. An investigation by Altroconsumo published in December detected peaks close to six months to win an appointment at the police station.
Italy has taken a step forward with Poste Italiane, which accelerates the initial phase: the documentation is delivered to the qualified counters (the details on Poste.it) and a receipt is obtained in which the police office is indicated that will manage the request.
Dubai and the center visa of the future
Outside of Europe, in the highly advanced Dubai who dedicated a museum to the future, they went further. They inaugurated a place that looks like a futuristic airport, where you get to prepare to fly, but without the trolley in tow.
It is the Visi Visi Center of VFS Global (VFSGLOBAL.COM), a company specialized in supporting diplomatic missions and governments, helping them to manage the consular services and the wide galaxy of administrative obligations related to travel.
It operates with 3,600 branches in 158 nations, has been a partner of 69 countries (of Italy since 2004), never makes final decisions but puts who must do it – the representatives of public authorities – in ideal conditions, thinning out the inaccuracies and omissions carried out by citizens eager to leave for study, work or tourism. In essence, it is undertaken so that the questions are compiled in a workmanlike manner and equipped with the entire documentation in support.
This is demonstrated by a visit to the center of Dubai, the largest in the world, inaugurated for a few months and able to manage 10 thousand applications per day, in full respect of privacy, thanks also to the support of artificial intelligence in the processing of data. It is a mosaic of rooms, each with flags, large photographs and small traces of the country you want to reach.
You enter by appointment, you access the chosen level, which for the most demanding includes exclusive lounges (as in the airport), where to hurry up the bureaucracy, tasting a meal or a hot drink.
You can be taken and put at home by a driver or, for the most spoiled, to carry out everything at home. At the venue there is a photographic set, if the phototessra has forgotten, areas for prints and photocopies, the need to never curs, be sure to be able to stuck the necessary in a short slice of time.
The evident convenience is subject to a variable tariff: it starts from the equivalent of less than 10 euros of commissions for a basic visa, the rest is separate. Including the possibility of being assisted in compilation or accessing the center out of peak times.
The comparison with private healthcare is immediate, which supplies the inadequateness of the public one, opening the door of exams and visits for a fee: “I believe that the comparison is not entirely appropriate” Object Folco De Luca Gabrielli, former Italian ambassador to Singapore and Malaysia, now responsible for Account Italy at VFS Global. “We contribute” underlines “to decongest the public system, making the entire process leaner, orderly and efficient, for the benefit of the users as a whole”. As if to say: those who choose the preferential lane, make the main road more clear.
Outsource passports in Italy?
Several European nations, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Lithuania, externalized to VFS Global the services for the release of passports intended for citizens residing abroad. Should we do the same as us, through ad hoc local centers? “Delegating Routine administrative activities to a reliable external partner” replies Gabrielli “the Italian authorities could optimize operations and focus more on the main responsibilities, such as the verification of identity and final approvals”. With a measurable outcome: the reduction of waiting times, old tricolor worry.
Certainly, with a similar model, requesting a document to travel would not be a nuisance. If not a pleasure, it would become an inconvenience to be faced with the lightest heart.
