Foreigners entering South Korea will be subject to tougher background checks in an effort to weed out terrorists and drug smugglers. The Ministry of Justice announced that fingerprints and facial images of foreigners will be collected at airports and ports.
The prints and images will be compared to a database which contains 230,000 foreigners with criminal records. Foreigners with criminal backgrounds or on an Interpol criminal watch list will be deported.
From the second half of next year the fingerprint screening will be required for all foreigners entering the country. Diplomats will not be included. Fingerprints are already required in the US and Japan. Most of the OECD states are adopting similar policies.
The country is starting the program earlier than planned to be prepared for the G20 Summit in Seoul in November.
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