EU seeking to develop migrant database into surveillance tool: NGOs

New Delhi

More than 31 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) including Amnesty and European Network Against Racism have targetted European Union for what they are the efforts to turn migrant database into a mass surveillance tool through proposed changes. The campaigners for the NGOs made the charge in an open letter to Members of the European Parliament (MEPs).

The NGOs have urged the EU to rethink overhaul of the Eurodac database of asylum seekers’ fingerprints. In a decision taken in 2018, the database was expanded to include passport or ID card details, facial images as well as fingerprints. This would also enable the officials to take fingerprints of children as young as 6. The previous age limit was 14.

The changes are yet to be implemented as the draft resolution is frozen pending agreement on reformation of centerpiece of EU asylum law.

The NGOs have said that use of facial imaging was “intrusive, disproportionate and privacy invasive". They said that the people on the move deserved the same level of protection as anyone else.

"...EU should not take advantage of their vulnerable situation to subject them to mass surveillance and undignified treatment.” they said.

The NGO's also lashed out at the practice of fingerprinting children

“Taking and retaining the biometric data of children for non protection related purposes is a seriously invasive and unjustified infringement on the rights of the child,” says the letter

Fingerprint database Eurodac was made in 2000 to deter asylum seekers from making multiple asylum requests

Under existing EU laws, asylum seekers are required to seek asylum in the first country they arrive in. This puts pressure on southern European countries.