All visitors to Britain requiring visas, including those from India, will have to be fingerprinted from today.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said a programme for installing biometric visa controls has already been completed three months ahead of schedule.

“It is done three months early and it is done several million pounds under budget,” Byrne said in a statement.

“We now check everybody’s fingerprint wherever they apply for a visa around the world,” he added.

The minister said the new system — the first of 10 key changes to the UK’s border controls to be implemented this year — is already showing its effect.

“We have already found about 500 cases of people who have chosen not to give us their identity correctly and we have checked them against databases that we hold in the UK and found out that they have been lying to us,” Byrne said.

“Obviously, that has allowed us to stop them coming anywhere near Britain.”