The U.S. Department of State have
resumed overseas visa issuance after a significant computer system
failure halted work at consulates worldwide and inconvenienced hundreds
of thousands of travelers.
The failure of an unidentified piece of
hardware involved in biometric processing brought the entire Consular
Consolidated Database system to a halt.
The system is responsible for processing and issuing an estimated 50,000 U.S. visas per day.
This affected all applications made after May 26, 2015.
John Kirby, State Department spokesman on Tuesday said
“The database has been rebuilt and is being tested. Significant additional numbers will be issued as the backlog clears”.
About two thirds of visa issuance
facilities are back online and have been issuing visas although only
45,000 were handed out on Monday. Of those, 15,000 were issued in
Beijing, which is the busiest U.S. consulate anywhere in the world.
The State Department hasn’t provided
details on what exactly went wrong and why it took so long to fix,
beyond saying the database needed to be rebuilt. It has stated the
failure was related to a hardware device and was not the result of a
cyberattack.
The same database failed at about the same time last year.
