# taz.de -- EU migration policy in Africa: Transparent Africans | |
> With money and technology from Europe, Africa is biometricised – a joint | |
> project for african statehood and EU border guards. | |
Bild: A german civil servant scanning a refugee's fingerprints at an asylum cen… | |
People fleeing from Africa to Europe have two options: they can take the | |
road across Libya and the Mediterranean Sea, where the mortality rate is | |
around 1:40 this year. Or travel with a borrowed, rented or fake passport. | |
8,373 people have caught European border guards in 2015 when entering the | |
Schengen area with such travel documents. The dark figure may be higher. In | |
Germany, the quota of asylum procedures „without any identity documents“ | |
was more than 70 percent at the beginning of 2015, according to the number | |
of the Central Register of Aliens (AZR). Missing documents are „still the | |
most quantitatively important problem“ for deportations, states in an | |
evaluation of the federations of the Federal States AG repatriations. | |
Access to biometrics databases of the African countries of origin is | |
therefore the dream of EU interior ministers. The problem: Many African | |
countries know too little about their own citizens. According to latest | |
figures from the World Bank, some one-third of the population of Africa is | |
not registered by the state at all. Either a list is missing, the last | |
census is decades ago, or the government does not issue identity cards. Or | |
all together. | |
Because of the lack of digital databases in many of the African offices, | |
folders and registers are piling up in damp cellars. The same goes for the | |
borders: servers, fingerprint scanners, digital cameras, readers are | |
missing. In some places, the data of the expatriates and arrivals are still | |
registered by hand in large notebooks. | |
## An action plan of the EU Commission | |
This is to change now. Europe has undertaken the biometrics of Africa. In | |
September, the EU Commission announced an „action plan“ for „more solid a… | |
intelligent information systems for border management“. When EU leaders met | |
with 30 African presidents on Malta last year, they promised „modern“ | |
reporting registers and „safe“ ID documents. Money from a multi-billion | |
dollar trust fund is expected. | |
In West Africa, the regional organization Ecowas (West African Economic | |
Community) is just beginning with the introduction of biometric ID cards, | |
which will enable visa-free border crossing in the future. At the same | |
time, the EU is investing 5 million euros in the development of the Wapis | |
police information system. Up to 17 countries between Mauritania and | |
Nigeria will store the fingerprints collected in police investigations | |
centrally and make Interpol accessible. | |
In Ghana, Mali, Niger and Benin, pilot projects have been running since | |
2015. The system is also intended for border controls and is intended to | |
help identify fake documents. „This brings a collective comparison of the | |
data of paperless African migrants for deportation purposes within reach“, | |
says Eric Töpfer from the Institute for Human Rights of the taz. | |
## Commissioned Bundesdruckerei | |
How close, the German Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière at the | |
beginning of the year on his Maghreb trip proved. Morocco agreed to a | |
biometric data comparison for deportations, he announced. About two weeks | |
later, Veridos, a joint-stock company of the Bundesdruckerei and the German | |
IT company Giesecke & Devrient, announced that they had been commissioned | |
by Morocco to develop and implement a national border control system. Among | |
other things, biometric scanners, pass-through devices, control sluices and | |
servers for 1,600 checkpoints are delivered. | |
Moreover, according to the Bundesdruckerei of the taz, it is currently | |
printing raw passports for Libya's transitional government. A delegation | |
from the Sudan Immigration Office paid a visit to her recently. | |
The market research institute MarketsandMarkets estimates that the global | |
biometry industry will grow by almost 18 percent annually by 2020. Africa | |
is the ideal sales market: the population there is to rise from 1.1 billion | |
to 2.4 billion by the middle of the century, nowhere more people will need | |
passports, passports or driving licenses – the best digital readability. | |
## The UNHCR under pressure | |
More than a thousand people are currently rescuing daily from southern | |
Sudan to the neighboring countries, mostly Uganda. When they are struck out | |
with their belongings in a refugee camp of the UN refugee agency, they have | |
to give their fingerprints, their photos are stored, and they are given a | |
plastic card on which all the features are stored. Only then do they have | |
the right to protection and access to help. | |
Over a million refugees, the UNHCR has already registered biometrically | |
with its new registration system (BIMS) worldwide. Your data is stored | |
centrally on a UN database in Geneva, Switzerland. Up to 34 million | |
refugees from 125 countries could be registered here in the future, the | |
Accenture system manufacturer estimates in a promotional brochure. BIMS has | |
already been used in 14 African countries. | |
The UNHCR is always in conflict with the state authorities. Since Somali | |
Islamists have committed attacks in Kenya, the Kenyan authorities are | |
calling on the UNHCR databases, which contain information about 600,000 | |
refugees in the country, including many Somalis. On taz's request states | |
that the UNHCR „does not share data with states or institutions“. | |
The fight against terror and irregular migration is increasingly affecting. | |
In Europe it is feared that IS sleeper could have come with the Syrian | |
refugees. As a countermeasure, incoming identity checks are recommended. In | |
line with the EU guidelines, the Sahel states, bombed by Boko Haram and | |
al-Qaeda, want to expand the initial biometrics as an anti-corruption | |
measure. | |
## Europe is happy to help | |
Many African countries can not afford the expensive printing presses. | |
Europe is happy to help with money and technology. The world market leader | |
in biometrics is the French-Dutch company Gemalto, which operates in four | |
African countries. With an annual turnover of more than € 2 billion, | |
Gemalto supplies a large number of African countries from Algeria to South | |
Africa with biometrics and registered voters, a particularly sensitive | |
issue. | |
European border protection and African governance policies are thus brought | |
together. „We are cooperating with the African Union on biometrics,“ the EU | |
Commission said. This also involved matters such as the better handling of | |
elections, the registration of children or the establishment of registers | |
of persons. „But of course the data must also be used for migration | |
management.“ | |
In Nigeria, for example. The country is regarded as a high passport of the | |
passport, Nigerians this year the second largest group of irregular | |
migrants from Africa in the EU. Since 2014 the 180 million inhabitants have | |
been equipped with biometric ID cards. The unambiguous identifiability of | |
Nigerian citizens is likely to greatly simplify the implementation of the | |
reintroduction agreement negotiated by the EU with Nigeria. In February | |
2016, the EU proposed European support for the expansion of the Nigerian | |
registry with biometrics in an internal strategy paper. | |
So far, only the data of 11 million Nigerians have been recorded; now the | |
Ecowas personnel ID has replaced the original project. It was controversial | |
anyway: the cards should serve as an electronic payment card, with | |
Mastercard as a partner. | |
Torn deal in Uganda | |
In other countries too, the contracts between governments and technology | |
groups are a source of controversy because of the high costs and opaque | |
procurement. In Gabon, the opposition to the government's overestimated | |
contract with Gemalto complains. In Uganda, Bavarian technology company | |
Mühlbauer hit the headlines in 2010 when company manager Josef Mühlbauer | |
met with Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni in the middle of the night, | |
accompanied by the German ambassador, to conclude a 64 million Euro | |
biometric ID card. After the Germans until 2012, according to Ugandan data | |
only 400 evasives delivered, the deal blown. | |
The largest Mühlbauer customer in Africa was until recently Algeria, which | |
was now taken over by Gemalto. „Highly skeptical“ the country is opposed to | |
a return agreement with the EU, states in an internal strategy paper of the | |
EU Commission, the taz is in possession of. Only a quarter of the planned | |
deportations of Algerians in 2014 were actually carried out. The deportees | |
do not want the country, but the biometrics pass. Here the interests | |
reunited. How the EU wants to move more towards Algiers is also in the | |
paper: Brussels wants to leverage money for a „biometric database“. | |
9 Dec 2016 | |
## AUTOREN | |
Paul Welch Guerra | |
## TAGS | |
Lesestück Recherche und Reportage | |
Schwerpunkt Flucht | |
MigrationControl | |
Grenzschutz | |
migControl | |
Lesestück Recherche und Reportage | |
Schwerpunkt Flucht | |
Schwerpunkt Flucht | |
EU-Flüchtlingspolitik | |
## ARTIKEL ZUM THEMA | |
Das EU-Flüchtlingspolitik in Afrika: Abschied von Dadaab | |
Das größte Flüchtlingslager der Welt liegt in Kenia. Eine Generation | |
Somalier ist dort groß geworden. Nun soll es abgewickelt werden. | |
EU-Flüchtlingspolitik in Libyen: Zurück in den Krieg | |
Libyen ist durch den Bürgerkrieg stärker zerrüttet als irgendein anderes | |
Maghreb-Land. Trotzdem will die EU Flüchtlinge dorthin zurückschicken. | |
Business mit Flüchtlingen im Sudan: Die Ehre der Schleuser | |
Tamir und Khalid treten wie seriöse Geschäftsleute auf – sie brachten 5.000 | |
Flüchtlinge nach Europa. Beide sind stolz darauf. Und sie sind | |
ausgestiegen. | |
Debatte EU-Flüchtlingspolitik in Afrika: Europas neuer Umriss | |
Unter Merkels Führung verteidigt die EU neuerdings ihre Außengrenzen tief | |
in Afrika. Das soll die Migration nach Europa radikal stoppen. |