Sri Lanka Police has temporarily suspended the online issuance of Police Clearance Certificates because of system maintenance, the Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday evening.

During the suspension, members of the public can obtain their certificates in person from their respective police stations. Police advised applicants to contact their local station for further information on how certificates will be issued while the online route is unavailable.

Why this matters

Police Clearance Certificates are a routine prerequisite for overseas employment, migration and many visa applications, so outages fall hardest on people working to deadlines set by foreign employers and embassies. The United Arab Emirates made a police clearance certificate mandatory for Sri Lankan visa applicants — one of several destinations that require the document.

This is the second disruption to the service in under a month, but the two are different in kind. In August the computerised system of the Police Clearance Division suffered an unexpected technical failure, going down from noon on 20 August and forcing police to introduce an email-based workaround before the system was restored on 22 August. The current suspension is described by police as planned maintenance, and the fallback is the police station counter rather than an email submission.

Update (September 17): three 24-hour helplines opened

Police Headquarters has opened three dedicated 24-hour helplines for applicants, run through its Special Operations Room, Hiru News reported on Thursday:

NewsFirst reported the same measure, saying the numbers are for applicants facing difficulties in obtaining certificates.

A statement from the Police Media Division said the public has already been notified of the temporary procedures for submitting applications until the digital system is restored to full operation. Police urged applicants to use the numbers for any clearance-related queries.

The helplines answer the gap left open on Tuesday, when the suspension was announced with no alternative contact channel — but they are a support line, not a substitute route for applying. The in-person police station counter remains the way to obtain a certificate.

Update (September 24): a WhatsApp channel, and the outage runs into a tenth day

Police have added a WhatsApp number — 071 8595950 — for inquiries about clearance certificate applications, NewsFirst reported on Thursday. The Police Clearance Division said inquiries can now be made by message to that number. It is separate from the three voice helplines opened on 17 September.

The more significant point is what the report confirms in passing: online submission remains suspended, nine days after the maintenance began, and the counter-based fallback is still the only route to a certificate. Police repeated that the arrangement stands “until the Police Clearance Computer System is fully restored,” and again gave no restoration date.

The fallback procedure, set out in full

For the first time since the suspension, police have published the complete workaround:

  1. Visit www.police.lk, open Digital Services, go to Clearance Certificate and download the application form.
  2. Submit the completed form to a police station with copies of the applicant’s National Identity Card, passport and birth certificate.
  3. If the name on the NIC differs from the name on the passport, attach a copy of an affidavit.

Applicants living overseas must have a close relative submit the documents to the relevant police station on their behalf. Foreign nationals seeking a Sri Lankan clearance certificate may apply through the nearest Sri Lankan embassy or high commission.

The overseas provision is the consequential one. Clearance certificates are largely sought by people arranging work or migration abroad, and requiring a relative in Sri Lanka to file the paperwork in person is a materially harder ask than an online form — particularly for applicants without close family on the island.

What is still not stated

Police have not said how long the maintenance will take, when the online service is expected to resume, whether applications already submitted online are affected or will need resubmission, or whether the maintenance is related to the August failure.

None of the updates carries a restoration date. Standing up round-the-clock phone support on the third day of a planned maintenance window suggested demand the counter fallback had not absorbed; adding a fourth contact channel on the tenth day, and only then publishing the full application procedure, points the same way. Police have not characterised call volumes or said how many applicants are affected.

A nine-day-and-counting outage is also no longer comfortably described as routine maintenance. The August failure was resolved in two days; this planned window has now run more than four times as long, and police have not said whether the two events share a cause.