China will start taking fingerprints of all foreign visitors entering the country, a move to step up the country's security measures, the Ministry of Public Security announced on Thursday.

The fingerprinting requirement will be rolled out first at Shenzhen Baoan International Airport beginning on Friday. This will eventually be introduced to other entry points across the country.

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All foreigners aged between 14 and 70 years old are required to leave their fingerprints, the ministry said, although it did not mention if other biometric data will be collected. Foreigners with diplomatic passports and visas or those coming from countries that have reciprocal agreements with China are however not required to give their fingerprints, the Washington Post reported.

Chinese authorities said that the country has more than 76 million entries and exits in 2016 from foreigners. Most of them came from countries such as South Korea, Japan, the United States, and Russia.

"Storing biological identification information of people entering and leaving borders is an important border control measure, and many countries have started to implement the regulation," the statement said.

The latest regulation aims to strengthen immigration control and boost custom clearance efficiency. Other countries had also employed the system. For instance, the US has started the system since 2004 and is now conducting tests of facial recognition software and other biometric screening process. Japan also started fingerprinting in 2007.

Other countries with a similar requirement are Cambodia, France, Taiwan, among others. Meanwhile, China also assured that the new system is efficient and will not cause any delay.

Tagschina, Border Control, fingerprints