The Passport Department has been fingerprinting expatriates for several years. However, some outbound travelers are having difficulty at the immigration counter at the King Abdulaziz International Airport because some machines are unable to read the fingerprints.

“I was traveling with my family during the Haj holidays. When I put my finger on the scanner, the machine couldn’t find a match even though I was fingerprinted two years ago and have traveled out of the Kingdom several times since then,” said Itaat Hasan, an expatriate. He was sent to a special fingerprinting counter where there were other people with the same problem.

“At this counter, people were dampening their fingers on a wet tissue before giving their fingerprint scans,” he said. “Some people had to do it 10 times or more before the machine was able to register them.”

Hasan nearly missed his flight because of the delay.

“The officer at the counter said that the fingerprints sometimes don’t register, especially if a person is diabetic or has high blood pressure. He also advised travelers to come to the airport five hours before flight time to minimize the risk of delays.”

Travelers are also advised to carry a copy of their iqama, in case they don’t have the exit/re-entry slip to avoid delays in locating their files on the computer system.

Another passenger Mahmood Ali, who is in his late 70s, said he had to give his fingerprint scans over a dozen times before they were registered.

Hamed Waqas, a Syrian national, had the same problem and had to run to catch his flight just as the gates were closing.

An officer at the immigration desk said that the Passport Department is trying to digitize the system, but they need the iqama number of the passenger to trace the exit/re-entry on the system if they don’t have the exit/re-entry slip.

Dr. Syed Anwar Khurshed, a consultant at a government-run hospital, said that people with diabetes have poor circulation, and small blood vessels shrink causing kidney failure and a host of other problems. “However, there is no evidence that diabetes or high blood pressure will impact fingerprinting. That said, travelers can dampen their hands either with water or by rubbing them together (rub the finger of one hand from palm to tip) to release sweat which will raise the chances of the machine registering the scans,” he said.