Refugee crisisGermany creates IDs for refugees
Germany’s parliament on Thursday voted for bill which would require refugees to carry a new ID card which would be linked to a centralized refugee database. The refugees will receive IDs that will include biometric information such as fingerprints, all the information required for an asylum request, country of origin, contact details, health status, and educational and professional qualifications. A centralized system will German federal and state agencies access to the information.
Syrian refugees passing through Slovenia enroute to Germany // Source: commons.wikimedia.org
Germany’s parliament on Thursday voted for bill which would require refugees to carry a new ID card which would be linked to a centralized refugee database. The government said the law was necessary to make it easier for the authorities to keep track of refugees entering and staying in the country. In 2015, Germany has accepted 1.1 million refugees, mostly from Syria.
DW reports that beginning in February, refugees – those already in Germany and those just entering the country – would each be given one ID card which will include not only biometric information such as fingerprints, but also all the information required for an asylum request, country of origin, contact details, health status, and educational and professional qualifications.
The government said the plan is by the summer to have all the refugees in Germany – which, will number about 1.6 million by then – equipped with the new ID, and to have all federal and state government agencies with access to the centralized system.
Analysts note that the move is a break with post-Second World War German administrative culture which, in response to the 1930s and 1940s, has been characterized be exceedingly decentralized and overlapping layers of authority. This decentralized system allowed some migrants to fake their identity or register multiple times.
