Australia’s Department of Home Affairs quietly expanded its mobile-biometrics ‘Immi App’ on 13 December 2025, adding Brazil and 33 other jurisdictions to the programme that lets visa applicants submit passport scans and live facial images via smartphone. The move ends the requirement for Brazilian visitors, students and temporary-work applicants to attend in-person biometrics appointments at contracted visa centres—a process that previously added up to three weeks to standard processing.
Under the upgrade, travellers receive a letter containing a Visa Lodgement Number (VLN) that unlocks the app’s identity-verification workflow. Once the data are uploaded, the images are encrypted and transmitted directly to Home Affairs’ secure servers, after which they are purged from the device. Officials say the change could shave 30 % off end-to-end processing times for high-volume subclasses such as the new Skills-in-Demand (SID) visa and the Subclass 500 student visa.
VisaHQ’s online platform can streamline this new process even further. By starting an application through VisaHQ (https://www.visahq.com/australia/), travellers and corporate mobility teams receive real-time guidance on Immi App requirements, automated reminders for biometric submission, and access to specialists who can resolve documentation questions before they cause delays.
![Home Affairs Rolls Out Mobile-Biometrics ‘Immi App’ to Brazil, Promising 30 % Faster Visa Turnaround]()
For mobility teams the payoff is faster mobilisation of Brazilian talent for Australian projects in mining, agritech and higher education. Travel-programme owners should update pre-departure checklists to confirm employees have compatible smartphones and understand Home Affairs’ photo-quality standards; low-resolution captures still trigger manual reviews. Relocation vendors report that corporate clients are already rewriting service-level agreements to reflect the shorter lead-times—good news for project budgets that have been strained by extended onboarding cycles.
The expansion also addresses privacy objections raised during the pilot: end-to-end encryption, no local data storage and automatic cross-checking against national watch-list databases. Nevertheless, legal advisers warn companies to obtain explicit employee consent before uploading biometric data and to retain proof of that consent in assignment files to comply with Brazil’s LGPD data-protection law.
Canberra views the mobile-biometrics push as part of a larger ‘digital border’ strategy that will eventually replace paper incoming-passenger cards and deliver fully tokenised travel credentials ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. Home Affairs officials say more countries will join the Immi App list in early 2026, with priority given to markets that generate high student-visa demand such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
Under the upgrade, travellers receive a letter containing a Visa Lodgement Number (VLN) that unlocks the app’s identity-verification workflow. Once the data are uploaded, the images are encrypted and transmitted directly to Home Affairs’ secure servers, after which they are purged from the device. Officials say the change could shave 30 % off end-to-end processing times for high-volume subclasses such as the new Skills-in-Demand (SID) visa and the Subclass 500 student visa.
VisaHQ’s online platform can streamline this new process even further. By starting an application through VisaHQ (https://www.visahq.com/australia/), travellers and corporate mobility teams receive real-time guidance on Immi App requirements, automated reminders for biometric submission, and access to specialists who can resolve documentation questions before they cause delays.
For mobility teams the payoff is faster mobilisation of Brazilian talent for Australian projects in mining, agritech and higher education. Travel-programme owners should update pre-departure checklists to confirm employees have compatible smartphones and understand Home Affairs’ photo-quality standards; low-resolution captures still trigger manual reviews. Relocation vendors report that corporate clients are already rewriting service-level agreements to reflect the shorter lead-times—good news for project budgets that have been strained by extended onboarding cycles.
The expansion also addresses privacy objections raised during the pilot: end-to-end encryption, no local data storage and automatic cross-checking against national watch-list databases. Nevertheless, legal advisers warn companies to obtain explicit employee consent before uploading biometric data and to retain proof of that consent in assignment files to comply with Brazil’s LGPD data-protection law.
Canberra views the mobile-biometrics push as part of a larger ‘digital border’ strategy that will eventually replace paper incoming-passenger cards and deliver fully tokenised travel credentials ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. Home Affairs officials say more countries will join the Immi App list in early 2026, with priority given to markets that generate high student-visa demand such as Vietnam and the Philippines.
