When you are granted a visa to visit Norway, the visa you receive entitles you to stay in the whole Schengen area. Everyone that applies for such a visa must provide ten fingerprints and a digital photo in addition to the usual personal data.

The only people exempt from the fingerprint requirement are children under the age of 12, persons for whom fingerprinting is physically impossible and heads of state and their delegations in certain  circumstances.

This information will be registered in a joint database for all the Schengen countries, the Visa Information System (VIS), which will be used to process your visa application and to check your identity when you cross the border. The new database can also be used to obtain information when we process asylum applications. The information will be stored in the system for five years.
 
The visa information registration scheme will be introduced on a “group by group” basis. The first group of applicants that the system will cover will be applicants who submit their applications to the embassies in Cairo, Rabat and Algiers. Within two to three years, the scheme will cover visa applicants from all countries.