THE GERMAN SYSTEM OF ALIENS CONTROL
In Germany - just as elsewhere in the EU - electronic registration of aliens is not something that gets much public discussion. Immigrants themselves usually have more urgent problems to cope with than the protection of their personal data. For them, securing their residence permit or/and their livelihood is more important than the constitutional right of "informational self-determination" [the right to control one's own data]. However, the extensive registration and exchange of aliens' personal data in the AZR (Ausländerzentralregister: Central Register on Aliens ) and a multitude of other electronic registers compiled by the public authorities, often dramatically affect immigrants' rights. Decisions about aliens law are not only made by the individual civil servants in charge. Behind every decision concerning an alien, there is a large administrative machinery with complex and extensive informational links.
AZR, the Central Register on Aliens
The AZR is the central structural unit for the registration and control of foreigners in Germany. It was set up in 1953, at a time when Germany began actively recruiting foreign workers and it was justified by "the need for increased surveillance of foreigners on federal territory". As early as 1967, the register was adapted to automated data processing.
The AZR is run as a department of the Office of Federal Administration (Bundesverwaltungsamt) in Cologne, and contains information on approximately 10 million aliens, only 6.3 million of whom are actually living in Germany.
In the first instance, all aliens living in Germany are registered in the system. In addition to this, registration takes place on the following occasions: asylum application, expulsion, deportation, prohibition to leave the country, "tolerated" stay, restriction on political activities, entry objections, extradition, reporting of persons for search at the border, for residence inquiries and for arrest. All data of an alien are registered under a so-called "AZR number". The standardised data set under the number contains information on the particulars, the reason of registration, ID documents, profession and place of residence in the country of origin, as well as information on relatives (including those not staying in Germany), entries and exits and decisions pertaining to aliens law, together with the reasons.
Data are supplied in the first place by aliens authorities of the communes and the Länder who are gradually being equipped with on-line access to the AZR. Other agencies allowed to enter data are: Germany's foreign representations, the border protection forces (BGS), the Federal Office for the Recognition of Refugees (BAFI), the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA), the public prosecutors, the authorities in charge of citizenship applications, the agencies for displaced ethnic Germans, and Germany's home intelligence service, the Verfassungsschutz . Most of these authorities as well as the Customs and the Federal Labour Office shall be enabled to enter data online in the near future. There is, however, some controversy on whether the secret services too shall obtain such a right.
Any federal authority looking for an alien can have a search notice entered into the AZR. The entering authority is then informed at once, if any other public authority comes across the alien concerned.
Unrestricted retrieval of information from the AZR is granted to aliens' authorities (local, regional, and federal), the federal asylum authorities (BAFI) and the border protection forces (BGS). The same applies to the police, the secret services and the judicial authorities, if they supply "valid grounds".
Limited access is granted to the Customs, the labour offices and the agencies for displaced ethnic Germans. Some basic personal data stored in the AZR are accessible to practically all public agencies in Germany. Finally, private charities (e.g. the Red Cross), and - depending on the circumstances of each particular cases - other private organisations and persons can be given information. Thus, it is not inconceivable that, for example the Turkish military or police authorities could obtain information on their nationals living in Germany from the AZR. Such communication of data is, however - theoretically - not permitted if a ban on the communication of data of a particular person has been ordered. Such a ban must, however, expressly be demanded by the alien. This is true even for political refugees.
The AZR also provides for "group evaluations", i.e. information on all persons with certain identical characteristics (for instance, all male Turks aged between 16 and 50 years residing in a particular town). Such group evaluation may be used by the police, the prosecution authorities and henceforth also by the secret services for the purpose of search by automated screening.
Finally, AZR data are not only used for the execution of administrative measures but also for statistical evaluation and planning.
Data sets are erased when an alien acquires German citizenship, or else 5 years after death or 10 years after the last departure from Germany.
Following growing criticism of the fact that the system had no legal basis, an AZR law was finally introduced in 1994. Among other things, the law provides for the setting up of a particular "visa register" linked to the AZR. All foreigners applying for a visa are registered in this special database, together with the foreign embassy or consulate where the application was lodged, the type of travel document and its number, as well as the decision on the visa application. The relevant data are entered directly or indirectly by the foreign representations. The law allows access - and possibly automated direct access - to the visa register for the BGS, the BAFI, the BKA and the secret services. The integration of data exchange between German foreign embassies and consulates and the AZR register in a world-wide communication system of the federal Government is planned. This system will enable the transfer of encoded data.
The aliens authorities
The aliens authorities in districts and towns keep records on each alien. Electronic data processing has been gradually introduced in these offices since the early 80s. Meanwhile, most larger aliens authorities are equipped with computers enabling them to directly retrieve information from the AZR. The aliens authorities who are the main suppliers of the AZR obtain most of their information from the aliens directly. Besides, upon request, they can obtain data they consider to be necessary from practically any public agency. According to the foreigner law, all authorities are liable to inform the aliens authorities on any particular "negative facts" regarding an alien, that might, for example, justify an expulsion. This obligation to denounce was strongly criticised when the law was adopted by parliament.
Foreign representations (embassies and consulates)
Since March 1987, the German foreign department has kept a list of persons who are to be denied a visa. For the time being, this list is issued as a booklet as a practical aid for the foreign representations. At the end of 1991, approximately 23,000 persons were on the list. The entry of names into the list is decided by the Federal Interior Ministry.
The federal Office for the Recognition of Refugees (BAFI)
The BAFI with its head office in Nuremberg and some 50 branch offices throughout the country is responsible for all asylum procedures.
Electronic data processing was introduced at the BAFI in 1985 and at present the agency runs several computerised data bases, the most important of which is ASYLON (asylum on-line), a system for the processing of case files. The system makes it possible to locate any particular records, and to discover what stage any asylum application has reached. It serves as a link to and between the branch offices in the Länder . ASYLON and the AZR are connected so as to enable the reciprocal transfer of the data in the other system. The BKA too is linked with ASYLON and supplies it with its evaluations of finger prints produced by the BKA's own computerised finger print register, AFIS.
Another system operated by the BAFI is ASYLIS with information on all asylum administrative law cases currently before German courts and topical information on political, religious, economic and societal developments in nearly 200 countries of origin. Since mid 1991 this information has also been available to the public via the legal information system JURIS.
The Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA)
The BKA in Wiesbaden is the central office of the nationwide police information system INPOL, set up in 1972. The Border Protection Forces, the Criminal Investigation Offices and the Police of the Länder are also connected to this system. Inter alia, INPOL's remit includes criminal searches for persons and objects, the checking of criminal records, a register of detainees and registers for crimes of federal importance.
The criminal search data base of INPOL holds details not only of criminals, but also persons who are considered as a threat to public order and security according to foreigners' law provisions, i.e. also expelled or deported aliens who are not criminal suspects. While the data of German offenders are erased after a relatively short time, the data of migrants are stored for 10 years as a rule. As a result, the majority of entries in INPOL now relate to "undesirable" migrants. In 1988, 171,000 warrants for arrest were registered in INPOL, of which 103,000 referred to expulsion orders against aliens.
The aliens' authorities have no direct access to INPOL, but the BKA is authorised to inform them about particular aliens by conventional means.
Other rules are applicable whenever the BKA provides administrative assistance to the aliens' authorities. Since 1992, this has been the situation with the automated finger-print system, AFIS. AFIS electronically stores the finger-prints not only of criminals but also of all asylum-seekers and all other aliens whose identity is unclear. Automated data-matching is used to prevent refugees from applying for asylum several times under different names. AFIS enables the storage and matching of some 400, 000 data sets per annum. Moreover, the BKA is also using finger-prints stored simply through the application of asylum and aliens' law for its own purposes of prosecution.
The Federal Central Register (BZR)
The BZR is run by the Federal Office of Prosecution in Berlin. The register makes available information on criminal sentences, persons under tutelage, and certain administrative decisions. Among other things, the BZR also registers expulsion orders, bans against aliens on leaving the country and deportation orders. The data are erased, once the decisions can no longer be executed. The aliens authorities are granted unrestricted information from the BZR, though not by automated access.
Secret services
Particularly sensitive data on foreigners are collected by the internal intelligence service, BVS (Bundesverfassungsschutz), and the corresponding agencies on the Länder level, for the detection of activities "that would prejudice the foreign interests of the Federal Republic of Germany". The BVS is based in Cologne. Contrary to what the law unequivocally states, the emphasis of the BVS' intelligence activities against aliens does not lie with acts of violence, but instead with the observation and evaluation of simple oppositional political activities. According to figures from 1984, 9 per cent of all Iranians over 16, and 5 per cent of all Turks and Kurds living in Germany were rated and registered as "extremists" by the BVS. The relative intensity of surveillance is twenty times higher for immigrants than for Germans. The data of the persons concerned are registered in the secret services' intelligence information system, NADIS. Apart from the secret services, only the police state protection service has restricted access to the system.
The BVS is authorised to hand over data to foreign secret services, if and when this is necessary "for safeguarding considerable security interests of the recipient". Thus, there is some evidence indicating that the German secret services have handed out information on Turks and Kurds active in opposition politics to MIT, the Turkish intelligence service.
Little is known about the activities of the German Foreign Intelligence Service, the BND. Considering its tasks, we may conclude that aliens are among the groups most subjected to surveillance by this service.
An evaluation
The above shows that refugees and immigrants are the population group most controlled by automated information systems in Germany. While there are decentralised systems for registering German citizens, data processing for aliens is highly centralised. Their are no analogous systems to the AZR, ASYLON and AFIS for the German population. Moreover, data exchange and matching is far more frequent with data on aliens than with data on Germans. While the principle of limiting the use of data to the original purpose of their collection still has some relevance as far as Germans are concerned, this principle is in practice completely abolished for immigrants and refugees.
Historically this can be explained by the fact that, in this country, aliens have never been recognised as having constitutional and fundamental rights in the same way as German citizens. The German population may also have been more successful at resisting to the collection of private data.
The public authorities claim that centralised data registering of aliens is necessary because of the greater mobility of migrants, their different cultural behaviour and their particular legal status.
The consequences for migrants can be seen both on the individual and the societal level:
The possibility of uncontrolled and unobserved entry is minimised. The pressure on individuals to conform is particularly strong. The informational discrimination against aliens merely mirrors their social discrimination. The greater informational "transparency" of aliens also entails that this population group makes it more suitable for administrative and political planning.
It is noticeable that technical structures for information processing being set up on the European level have the German system of migrant control as a model. The German INPOL system is mirrored by the European SIS (Schengen Information System) and the EIS (European Information System). The Fingerprint register AFIS is to be extended to the entire EU territory under the name of EURODAC. As for the AZR, a recent Recommendation of the Council of Home Affairs Ministers suggests that all EU member states set up their own central registers on foreigners (see FECL No.35: "Draft Recommendation on combat of illegal immigration"), and the Schengen Treaty provides for mutual exchange of data and common lists on foreigners, although by conventional (non-automated) means for the time being.
Thilo Weichert
Translated and edited from: Das System der deutschen MigrantInnenerfassung, in Datenschutz-Nachrichten 5-1994. Contact with the author: Dr. Thilo Weichert, Datenschutz Niedersachsen, Postfach 221, D-30002 Hannover; Tel: +49/511 1202083; Fax: +49/511 1202099.