Bad News for Refugees in Germany, Meet New Measures

60 percent of all asylum seekers who visit Germany have no identification documents, but almost everyone has a mobile phone. A young man said he was gone from Alepola. In the fall of 2015, he reached the Austrian-bavarez border. There was no ID. He said he lost it. But he had his cell phone on him.

In the phase of the mass refugee arrival, border guards were unable to control the identities of all of them. In most cases they gave them only the sign to pass. In fact, the refugee who claimed to have fled the civil war from Alepo were the Moroccan who had come to Germany with the stream of the true “sirian” through the “Balkan path”. The above history has occurred thousands of times. The country's issue of origin is important, because it is crucial to the prospects for asylum. The Syrians can stay in Germany, the Moroccans are not, because this country is considered safe.

After political and legal discussions on whether the authorities will be allowed to read mobile phone data and determine exactly where and when someone has come to Germany, the government now decided to grant the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) the right to use mobile phones to verify identity. Lawyers, data advocates and humanitarian organisations view this as a broad intervention of personal data. Meanwhile, Utah Cordt, leader of the BAMF, considers it a very urgent step.

She says reading mobile data will only be a relief step in case of suspicion of the identity of persons seeking asylum. The German government's charge for personal data views this procedure as unconstitutional. Some experts on criminal law are of that opinion.

So far reading cell data from BAMF employees could only be done after a judge had decided to do so. If you suspect that someone had lied about identity, and this proves true, then the person's right to asylum is denied. In 2016, 400 asylum permits were canceled because of fraud about the country of origin, which had been arranged through the mobile phone. The problem is that one may have two mobile phones, yet determining one's identity becomes easier if cell phone records are checked. But despite that, the association “for individual freedoms” will file charges against the cell phone control law.