FECL 39 (November 1995):

GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND TO MATCH FINGERPRINTS OF ASYLUM SEEKERS: TEST RUN FOR EURODAC?

Germany and Switzerland are planning to electronically match the fingerprints of a random selection of asylum seekers stored in their respective electronic fingerprint registers.
Government officials in both countries stress that the objective of the operation is to gain statistical information on the extent of multiple applications of asylum seekers, but there are reasons to believe that the data-matching operation is also a test run for the planned European fingerprint database for asylum seekers, EURODAC.

According to a draft arrangement between the Swiss Federal Department of Justice and Police and the German Federal Interior Ministry, The German BKA (Federal Office of Criminal Investigation) will send high quality copies of a random selection of 9,000 fingerprints of asylum seekers to Switzerland, where they will be digitally entered into the Swiss fingerprint register, AFIS. The 9000 "German" fingerprint samples will than be automatically matched with the entire data stock of the Swiss AFIS. This shall enable the Swiss Federal Office for Refugees to track down identical fingerprints. These "hits" will than be evaluated according to criteria such as:

• the quota of double/multiple identities, listed according to the countries of origin;
• the number of multiple applications made by one asylum seeker using different names;
• the country in which the first application was made;
• checks on whether asylum seekers have mentioned a prior application in Germany when seeking asylum in Switzerland.

It is stressed in the draft document that the operation is "non-recurring" and only for statistical purposes. Its findings may not be used in deciding on individual applications. The Swiss authorities bind themselves to delete all the German data as soon as the operation is completed.

According to a spokesman of the Swiss Office for Refugees, a similar data-matching operation between Switzerland and Austria in 1993 revealed a 10 per cent rate of double applications.

Neither the Swiss nor the German federal data protection commissioner object to the data matching operation. Nonetheless, it is questionable from a legal point of view. The German asylum law does not expressly provide for the exchange of asylum seekers' data with foreign countries, and in Switzerland, the federal data protection commissioner has earlier contended that already the systematic storage of the fingerprints of all asylum seekers in the AFIS system breaches the constitution. The Swiss Government seems to be aware of the problem and is now planning a change of the asylum law providing both for the registration of all asylum seekers' fingerprints and for the exchange of these data with foreign countries.

Swiss anxious to join EURODAC

Switzerland has for a long time pressed for the setting up of a European fingerprint database on asylum seekers and has even proposed a Swiss made system, EURASYL, to the EU (see FECL No.7: "INTERNATIONAL DATABASE FOR FINGERPRINTS - SWITZERLAND'S "WEDDING PRESENT" TO TREVI"). The EU, however, rejected the Swiss bid in 1992 and began developing its own system, EURODAC. Ever since, Switzerland that is not a member of the Union has shown itself anxious not to be cut off from the EU member states' cooperation in the domain of asylum. Switzerland is currently negotiating so-called parallel treaties that would link the country both to the Dublin Convention and the planned EURODAC system.

The objective with EURODAC is to prevent "asylum abuse" by asylum seekers making multiple applications and to help finding the member state of first entry responsible for the deportation of refugees whose application for asylum has been turned down.