For refugees, biometrics all the way
In addition to the walls erected along the borders, the databases form a virtual wall against human migration.
Getty Images / Science Photo Libra - KTSDESIGN / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Text by: Lou Roméo Follow
8 mins
Beyond the walls that have been growing at the world's borders since the 1990s, refugees, migrants and asylum seekers are increasingly confronted with the extension of biometric databases.
A “virtual wall” thus extends outside, at the borders and inside the Schengen area, built around programs and databases.
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Refugees who pay with their irises, migrants identified by their fingerprints, facial recognition sensors, but also emotions ... Gathered under the banner of the "smart border", these technological devices, based on anticipation, l he identification and automation of border crossing thanks to biometric databases, aim to sort travelers, facilitating the journey of some and blocking that of others.
The European Union thus has a battery of databases which supplement border controls.
Since 2011, a dedicated agency, the European Agency for the operational management of large-scale information systems, the EU-Lisa, has aimed to develop and develop, in conjunction with private companies, the monitoring of asylum seekers.
► To read also: Border walls are multiplying across the world
It thus manages several databases compiling biometric data.
One of them, the “
Entry and Exit System
” (EES), will be deployed in 2022, at an estimated cost of 480 million euros.
The EES's mission is to collect up to 400 million pieces of data on non-European people crossing the borders of the Schengen area, in order to monitor in real time the overruns of the legal visa duration.
In the event of an extended stay that has become illegal, the alert will be given to all European police forces.
Burn your fingers not to be registered
EU-Lisa also manages
the
Eurodac
file
,
which records the fingerprints of each asylum seeker from the European Union. Used to apply the Dublin III Regulation, according to which the asylum application is lodged and processed in the European country where the migrant was first registered, it leads to strategies of resistance.
“
We have seen migrants refuse to give their fingerprints when they arrive in Greece, or even burn their fingers so as not to be registered in Eurodac,”
recalls Damien Simonneau, researcher at the Convergences Migrations Institute of the Collège de France.
They know that if they have, for example, family in Germany, but they have been registered in Greece, they will be sent back to Greece for their application to be processed there, which has enormous consequences for their lives.
The investigation procedure in fact lasts 12 to 18 months on average.
► To read also: Immigration: the EU wants to abolish the Dublin regulation for a new more united system
The collection of biometric data thus marks out migration routes, from countries of departure to movements within the European Union, with the aim of limiting and controlling.
To fight against "
cross-border crime
" and "
illegal immigration
",
the EuroSur border zone surveillance system
allows, via real-time information sharing, to intercept people trying to reach the
border
before their arrival. European Union.
Controls in the countries of departure
For the Transnational Institute, author with the
Stop Wapenhandel
think tank
and the Center Delàs of several studies on borders, the use of these databases demonstrates a clear strategy on the part of the European Union.
"
One objective of the expansion of virtual borders,
they write well in
the report
Building Walls
, published in 2018
, is to intercept refugees and migrants before they reach European borders, not have to deal with them
.
"
If these techniques make it possible to pre-sort requests to make border crossing more fluid, by speeding up authorized movements, they can also, according to Damien Simonneau, have perverse effects.
"
The use of these mechanisms is based on the idea that technology is a facilitator, and it is true that the empowerment of certain procedures can facilitate the movement of people authorized to cross borders, he
explains
.
But technologies are fallible, and can produce discrimination.
"
These virtual techniques, with very real consequences, thus upset the relationship with the border and migratory routes.
"
The migrant is confronted with multiple" border "points, scattered all over the place,
analyzes Damien Simonneau
.
This creates additional obstacles to migratory routes: control is almost no longer linked to crossing a national border, it is deterritorialized and can occur anywhere, upstream or downstream of the State border.
"
Thus, the “European Union's externalization policy” allows migratory control to be exercised in the countries of departure.
For example, the European “SIV” program collects biometric data linked to visa applications as soon as they are formulated in consulates.
►Also read: Denmark adopts a law to transfer its asylum seekers outside Europe
Even more, the European Union delegates part of the management of its borders to other countries: "
In some Sahelian states,"
explains Damien Simonneau,
humanitarian and development aid is conditional on improving border controls.
.
"
A program of the International Organization for Migration (IOM),
the MIDAS program
, funded by the European Union, is thus used by 23 countries, mainly in Africa, but also in Asia and America. Its goal is to
“collect, process, store and analyze
[biometric and biographical] information
from travelers in real time
” to help local police control their borders.
But according to the Migreurop network,
this data can also be transmitted to European police agencies. The EU thus exercises a right of scrutiny, via Frontex, over the information and data analysis system on migration, installed in Makalondi in Niger.
►To listen:
Syrian refugees: what agreement between the European Union and Turkey?
Refugees who pay with their eyes
A mix of genres, between humanitarian organizations and States, between protection, logistics and surveillance, which is also found in refugee camps.
In the Jordanian camps of Zaatari and Azarq, for example, near the Syrian border,
since 2016
refugees have been
paying for their food with their irises.
Humanitarian food aid distributed by the World Food Program (WFP) is in fact paid to them into an account linked to their biometric data.
All they need to do is pass their eyes through a scanner to pay for their purchases.
A practice that greatly facilitates the logistical management of the camp by the UNHCR and the WFP, by allowing the traceability of exchanges and avoiding fraud and theft.
But according to Léa Macias, anthropologist at EHESS, this also has drawbacks.
“
If this payment with the eyes can reassure some refugees, insofar as it protects them against theft,
” she explains, “
the process is also perceived as violence.
Refugees are well aware that no one else in the world, in a normal situation, pays with their body like this.
"
►Also read
:
The world has 55 million internally displaced people due to conflict and the climate
The danger of data breach
The researcher is also worried about the fate of the data thus collected, and asks the question of the refugees' interest in this process.
“
Humanitarians are being pushed to use these new technologies,
” she explains
, “which donors see as a guarantee of reliability.
But technologization is not always in the best interests of refugees.
If databases are leaked or hacked, this even exposes them to dangers.
"
A Human Rights Watch
(HRW) report, published Tuesday, June 15, warns of transfers of biometric data belonging to Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.
These data, collected by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), were transmitted by the government of Bangladesh to the State of Burma.
If the
UNHCR reacted
by affirming that the people concerned had given their consent to this transfer of data to prepare for a possible return to Burma, there is nothing to guarantee that they will be well received if their name "beeps" when passing through. the border.
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