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EU: Fingerprinting refugees

01 January 1993

At the meeting of the EC Immigration Ministers in the Hague, Netherlands in December 1991 it was agreed that a feasibility study should be undertaken for the matching of the fingerprints of asylum seekers across the EC. This was followed up in June 1992 in Lisbon of the Trevi & Immigration ministerial meetings (comprising Internal and Justice ministries). At the Trevi session of this meeting, Switzerland which is an "observer" within Trevi (the 12 EC states comprise the full members), presented a feasibility study on a computerised system of information on the fingerprints of asylum seekers - called EURASYL.

The study proposes a centralised computer system covering the EC, the EFTA countries and others (Iceland, Canada and Australia are mentioned) which would allow the comparison of asylum seekers fingerprints. This its says would be able to detect duplicate applications (under the Dublin Convention a person may only apply to one EC country) and bogus claims under false names ("an asylum seeker often assumes another identity when he passes into another country"). It claims that in Switzerland, which has been operating such a system since 1998, approximately 4-6% are double applications. The study argues that the benefits of such a system would be to accelerate the processing of applications, and would reduce the welfare costs of looking after asylum seekers. The system would be able to deal with 2.5 million records.

It recognises the problem of data protection and that of legitimising the transfer of data which it sees as "preventing unwanted leakage". Like other discussions of data protection in the EC there is more concern over preventing the leakage of embarrassing information than ensuring that the records are correct and accurate.

EURASYL, feasibility study, Berne, June 1992.