Sri Lanka Police has temporarily suspended the issuance of Police Clearance Certificates after the computerised database system used by Police Headquarters broke down.
The system has been inactive since 12:50 p.m. on Thursday, August 20, according to Police Headquarters. The Information and Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka (ICTA) has been notified and work to restore the system is under way.
What has stopped
Police Clearance Certificates are issued through the Clearance Division on the 17th floor of the Suhurupaya building in Battaramulla. The division uses a single automated database system to process applications, call in the reports needed to verify them, and print the certificates themselves — so the outage halts the whole chain rather than one step in it.
The Police Media Division asked the public to refrain from submitting applications until the system is fully restored, and said applications can be lodged again once it is back in service. No estimate for restoration was given, and none of the three outlets reporting the outage said what caused it.
Why it matters
Police Clearance Certificates are among the more heavily used documents Sri Lanka Police issues to the public. They are routinely required for visa applications, migration, and overseas employment placements — the last a significant volume, with the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment reporting record monthly departures in July.
Several destination countries require a clearance certificate as a condition of entry or of a work permit. The United Arab Emirates made police clearance mandatory for Sri Lankan visa applicants, and applicants working to fixed visa deadlines have limited room to absorb a processing pause.
It is the second failure of a public-facing government document system in as many weeks. Passport issuance at the Department of Immigration and Emigration was halted by a computer system failure on August 11, though that outage was resolved within about an hour. The police system has now been down for close to a day.
Ada Derana, Daily Mirror and Hiru News all reported the suspension on Friday morning, each describing the same cause and the same timeline.
