Employees and students can show their passports to the Migration Agency on their mobile phones

The Swedish Migration Agency is launching a pilot for digital passport check to make it easier to apply for a residence permit. Students and workers from 22 countries and territories are the first to be able to use the identification app Freja to show their passports.

‘Some applicants will now be able to download an app, scan their passport and perform facial recognition to identify themselves for their residence permit applications for studies and work,’ says Fredrik Larsson, an specialist at the Swedish Migration Agency's Unit for Foreign Operations.

The Swedish Migration Agency is at the forefront of technology from a global perspective when the first offers of digital passport checks are sent out in the last week of May.

The Digital Passport Check e-service has been developed so that visa-free students and workers can avoid time-consuming and sometimes expensive journeys to a Swedish mission abroad. It also saves money and time for the missions abroad, and is good for the environment.

‘The whole aim of the project has been to make it easier for applicants. Since it became a requirement to show your passport during a personal visit, more people have been forced to visit a mission abroad, which may be in another country,’ says Fredrik Larsson.

The offer of a digital passport check is sent out in the form of an automated email within a couple of days of an online application for a work or study permit. The email contains a personalised link to the e-service that is valid for one week, and the short response time is important in order not to delay processing.

In connection with the launch, the Swedish Migration Agency will also send the offer to all persons - covered by the pilot - who have made an application in 2024 but have not yet shown their passport.

The passport check is done with the help of Freja eID Group AB, which offers functions for reviewing and transmitting passport information to Swedish authorities.

Using the Freja app will also be a first step in creating an e-ID that other authorities can rely on during the application process. Once the user has obtained a Swedish personal identity number or coordination number, it can be updated to a full Swedish e-ID.

Around 19,000 workers and 5,000 students are expected to benefit from the new digital passport check service every year based on statistics on the 22 countries and territories in 2023.

22 countries and territories in the digital passport check pilot

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CANADA

BRAZIL

MEXICO

AUSTRALIA

UNITED KINGDOM

NEW ZEALAND

TAIWAN

JAPAN

SOUTH KOREA

CHILE

SINGAPORE

MALAYSIA

NORTH MACEDONIA

GEORGIA

UKRAINE

ARGENTINA

COLOMBIA

PERU

ALBANIA

SERBIA

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Update 2024-05-30: Hong Kong has been removed from the list, as it turned out the technical solution The Swedish Migration Agency is currently testing can not recognize passports from persons living there.