(Eagle News)–The Bureau of Immigration is gearing up for paperless travel procedures for the “new normal” brought about by COVID-19.
In a statement, the bureau said frontliners stationed in the different international ports are preparing to use digitized arrival cards and records.
The bureau said it would also soon use digitized boarding passes for international passengers entering and exiting the country’s ports.
According to the bureau’s Port Operations Division chief Grifton Medina, the digitized arrival cards will be filled out by Philippine-bound passengers at their port of origin prior to their departure for the Philippines.
“This would enable us to easily track details of a passenger as the data will be integrated and sorted in our system.Should information be needed for contact tracing, we wouldn’t have to manually dig into boxes of arrival cards which take up precious time. With one click, we would be able to provide the data faster to contact tracers,” he added.
As for the digitized boarding passes, he said the bureau was pushing for airlines to use QR or bar codes in a passenger’s mobile phone or device instead of the usual physical boarding pass.
With this type of system in place, he said there would be “a fully paperless transaction during immigration assessment,” which not only reduces the risk of transmission but also allows for more efficient monitoring.
“These new paperless travel control systems and procedures are just among several innovative protocols that we will be introducing under a new normal environment during this pandemic,” Immigration bureau chief Jaime Morente said.
