Photogragh and fingerprints of travellers

I was delayed for 30 minutes at the immigration counter at Jakarta airport. The delay was due to an exercise to capture the photograph and fingerprint of visitors. A friend who arrived in Jakarta later in the day was delayed by 3 hours.

It would be quite troublesome to visitors, if all the countries decide that they need to capture the photographs and fingerprints of all visitors. Surely, the information can be captured once, e.g. at the home country, and can be allowed for access by immigration authorities in all the countries that are being visited?

Perhaps a global organisation like Google or Microsoft can provide this service and encourage immigration authorities to access a common server? As a traveller, I am happy to have the images captured once and be accessed globally.

Tan Kin Lian