With the rise of China's comprehensive national strength, the number of Chinese citizens traveling abroad is increasing year by year, and the term "visa" is no longer unfamiliar to our people. When you receive a foreign visa, your first reaction might be, "I can go to that country now." Beyond that, have you ever paid attention to the style of the visa in your passport? While visa formats vary from country to country, there are still commonalities to be found. In general, visas can be categorized into the following types:
1. Stamp Visas: Traditional visas are produced by manually or semi-automatically stamping the visa page of a passport. The disadvantage is that the process is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and due to poor anti-counterfeiting performance, it is usually supplemented by manual signatures. Because of the low cost, stamp visas are still used by some underdeveloped countries.
2. Sticker Visas: Currently, most countries in the world have adopted sticker visas. Visa stickers incorporate certain anti-counterfeiting designs and are printed using computer systems. To prevent tampering, strong adhesives, printed photos, or laser anti-counterfeiting labels are often used to enhance security.
3. Bio-visas (Biometric Visas): These utilize biometric information such as facial features and fingerprints to enhance the anti-counterfeiting performance of the visa and improve the ability to verify the identity of the visa holder. Most biometric visas achieve data sharing between issuing authorities and border immigration departments through dedicated networks. Biometric visas do not replace sticker visas; the two coexist and complement each other.
4. E-visas (Electronic Visas): Also known as stickerless visas. E-visas require the support of a robust internal network. Once applicants receive authorization information (such as a written notification), they can enter and exit the country directly with their passports. E-visas completely replace the cumbersome printing and pasting procedures of sticker visas. Australia has already implemented e-visas in China.
5. Card-style Visas: The APEC Business Travel Card, as well as identity registration cards for the Olympic Games or Asian Games, are essentially a form of visa. Unlike stamp or sticker visas, they move away from the passport as the sole carrier, instead encoding identity, passport, and visa information onto a card. Such documents usually need to be used in conjunction with a passport.
6. Chip-based Visas: European and American countries once attempted to issue chip-based visas, but abandoned the effort due to conflicts with the increasingly common electronic passport chips. It is possible that countries may reach a consensus in the future to issue visas directly within electronic passport chips. By then, you will no longer need to carry a passport filled with visa stickers; instead, you might carry a passport and visa the size of a credit card. However, this type of visa is constrained by the progress of electronic passport promotion and still has a long way to go.
Entering the 21st century, the trend of economic globalization has not dismantled the invisible barriers of national borders. Strengthening entry and exit control requires the use of constantly evolving technological power, and visa formats will become more diversified as a result.
