Now Reading: VFS Global may handle Indian passport, driving licence applications
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VFS Global may handle Indian passport, driving licence applications
VFS Global, the world's largest visa outsourcing firm, is planning to enter India's domestic citizen services, potentially handling applications for passports, driving licences and national IDs, CEO Zubin Karkaria told The Indian…
VFS Global, the world's largest visa outsourcing firm, is planning to enter India's domestic citizen services, potentially handling applications for passports, driving licences and national IDs, CEO Zubin Karkaria told The Indian Express. The company, which runs over 200 centres in India and 4,400 globally, processes nearly 30 million visa applications a year and serves 71 governments.
Karkaria defended VFS Global's operations after a global investigation raised allegations about appointment slots and pressure to buy premium services. He said there was no EU investigation, denied data breach risks, calling its frontline systems 'dumb terminals' that cannot download information, and said biometric data is not retained after transmission. The company uses AI to detect forged documents and appointment fraud, deployed across 1,200 routes for eight governments.
VFS Global invests over $100 million annually in technology and employs 20,000 people, undergoing about 10,000 audits each year. The company shelved a planned 2019 listing due to Covid and paused a 2024 listing because of the Gulf crisis. Karkaria said VFS remains open to either an IPO or a strategic partnership.
Indian Opinion Analysis
VFS Global's bid to enter Indian citizen services, handling passports, driving licences and IDs, would put a for-profit multinational in what is traditionally a government function. The R1.2-lakh-crore outsourcing industry promises speed, but the key question is data sovereignty: India's Personal Data Protection Bill, still in Parliament, lacks clear rules on how foreign intermediaries store and erase biometrics. If the government greenlights this, it will set a precedent for private firms accessing Aadhaar-linked databases, a red line privacy advocates have long guarded. Watch for whether the Ministry of Home Affairs or Ministry of Electronics and IT issues a formal consultation paper, likely within six months, before any pilot.
Source: livemint.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
