On the Austrian-Slovenian border, Austria fingerprints migrants, then discards them. (
AlAhram).
On the Austrian-Slovenia border, one of the last stops on the migrant
route to Germany, a policeman explains that after his 12-hour shift
taking new arrivals' fingerprints, most are lost minutes after they are
taken.
"
We are not allowed to save the fingerprints," the Austrian policeman,
who wanted to remain anonymous, said as he sat in a tent at the
Spielfeld border crossing. "
We do what we're asked to do."
Austria, which saw 700,000 migrants crossing its borders last year,
says it is not legally allowed to save and share with other European
states more than 90 percent of the fingerprint data it takes of migrants
fleeing war and poverty, a potential security problem at a major
migrant hub.
It is only required to upload onto Europe's shared fingerprint
database, Eurodac, the data of those who actually apply for asylum in
the country,
which is less than 10 percent of those crossing into
Austria.
So Austria takes digital fingerprints of everyone entering the country,
checks whether they have a criminal record, but does not save the data
if they want to move on to Germany, which most do.
Roz, a 28-year old Syrian mother of two, is surprised to hear that her family's fingerprints are neither saved nor shared.
"They need to know who we are. If you record fingerprints of refugees,
it guarantees security in this country," she said as she was shown by
Austrian officials onto a bus that would take her to the German border,
her chosen destination.
The situation highlights how European laws are far behind the
challenges of the continent's latest crisis, one that has already seen
hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees, mainly from Syria,
flooding into the continent seeking a new life.
"
That is a major problem, we have no records on these people, there are
so many moving around the bloc and we have no trace of them
whatsoever," said one diplomat in Brussels, adding that some EU
countries have tried to push for changes but they were blocked due to
privacy protection concerns.
Berndt Koerner, deputy executive director of Europe's border agency
Frontex, said he was confronted with an "anachronism" in the sharing of
migrant data.
"
We are currently confronted with the problem that we cannot access
certain databases, which can be used nationally in border controls,"
Koerner told reporters this month.
Only states on the EU's external borders, such as Greece and Italy, must save and share all fingerprint data. Read the full story
here.
