The Malaysian Immigration Department is testing the use of QR codes at the country's entry gates to launch the existing process. The congestion that occurs at the entrance of the country especially in the North and South needs to be resolved and QR is seen as the easiest step. At this point the use of QR codes is still in the study stage and details about it will be announced by the Ministry of Home Affairs in the near future.
Although the immigration department wants to solve the issue of overcrowding, at the same time no compromise will be taken from the point of view of ensuring national security. The QR scan system is already used by Singapore for the entry of Malaysians at Tuas and Woodlands as well as at Changi Airport. Based on our personal experience, it only takes a few minutes as we only need to fill in the application code through the ICA application.
The use of QR codes may be a short-term solution as efforts to introduce digital passports have already started in Finland with them being stored in smartphones. We are confident that within a generation, the use of digital passports will become as commonplace for international travel as using a non-cash payment system on a smartphone.