As Visa Volumes Rise, Governance Can No Longer Be an Afterthought
by Prashant Singh, Business Head, Writer Relocations
Every visa application begins with a personal plan. It could be a university admission, a new job, a business meeting or a long-awaited family reunion. For the applicant, the passport submitted at a processing centre is not just another document. It represents the possibility of moving forward with that plan.
The industry, however, is still largely judged through numbers: appointment availability, processing capacity and turnaround time. These indicators matter, particularly as international mobility from India grows. But they do not tell applicants whether their personal information is secure, their passport is traceable or the services being offered to them are being explained clearly.
The scale involved makes these questions increasingly important. According to the European Commission, Indians submitted approximately 11 lakh applications for short-stay Schengen visas in 2025, up from 9 lakh in 2023. This placed India among the world’s three largest source markets for Schengen visa applications1. The UK granted another 5 lakh visitor2 visas to Indian nationals in 2025, the highest number issued to any nationality.
These figures cover only two major visa corridors, but they indicate the responsibility carried by the organisations supporting the process. Each application can involve passports, biometric identifiers, bank statements, employment records and travel histories. Handling this information is not routine administrative work. It is a public-facing responsibility that requires strong operational and ethical safeguards.
Recent European inspection reports, followed by the European Commission’s call for improved quality control and monitoring of external service providers, have brought this issue into focus. The lesson should not be reduced to any individual provider or inspection. It is an opportunity for the entire industry to examine whether its controls have kept pace with its growth.
In visa processing, governance is not something that sits behind the operation. Governance is the operation.
This becomes clear in the small decisions made every day. Who can access an applicant’s file? How is biometric information transferred? How long is personal data retained? Can a passport be traced at every stage? Does an applicant know that an additional paid service is optional? What happens when a mistake is reported?
These may appear to be procedural questions, but they determine whether an applicant experiences the process as reliable and fair. A policy may look robust on paper, yet its real value depends on whether it is followed consistently across centres, shifts and frontline teams. As networks expand, that consistency becomes harder to maintain and more important to measure.
Data protection is one part of this responsibility. Personal and biometric information must be encrypted during storage and transfer, access must be restricted and records must be deleted within the prescribed period. But technology alone cannot guarantee responsible handling. Employees must understand why these controls exist, managers must identify exceptions quickly and audit findings must lead to visible corrections.
The same principle applies to passports. During periods of high demand, organisations naturally focus on increasing appointment capacity and processing more applications. Yet capacity planning must also account for secure storage, documented handovers and the ability to trace every passport from submission to return. A missing document is not simply an operational exception for the person waiting to travel.
Transparency is equally practical. Applicants should know what they are required to pay, which supporting documents are necessary and which additional services are optional. Premium appointments, courier delivery or messaging updates may offer convenience, but they should never create the impression that purchasing them could influence a visa decision. Clear communication protects applicants while strengthening confidence in the wider system.
Service-centre design also has a role. Applicants often discuss finances, employment and family circumstances at a counter. Physical spaces should allow those conversations to take place without unnecessary exposure. Privacy cannot apply only to information stored in a database. It must extend to every point at which personal details are collected or discussed.
No high-volume operation will be entirely free from delays or mistakes. The more useful test is how quickly a concern can reach someone authorised to investigate it and whether the applicant receives a clear response. A grievance mechanism that merely records complaints without resolving them provides little protection.
Governments rely on specialist partners because they bring reach, infrastructure and operational expertise to complex public-facing services. That model has value, but its credibility depends on regular audits, measurable training, consistent controls and meaningful oversight. These cannot be activities that begin only after a concern is raised.
Speed and scale will remain important in visa processing. But as application volumes grow, the industry must pay equal attention to what happens behind the appointment counter. The standard should be simple: every document must remain traceable, every piece of personal information must be protected, and every applicant must be treated fairly.
[1] https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/news/schengen-short-stay-visa-applications-rise-2025-remain-below-pre-pandemic-levels-2026-05-28_en
[2] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-december-2025/how-many-people-come-to-the-uk-each-year
