German Fingerprinting Proposals Revealed

In a radical move to step up security against threats of mass illegal immigration, the Association of German Criminal Investigators (Der Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamte) has announced plans to set up a central databank, which would document each inhabitant's personal information by using their unique fingerprint as the identification device.

The proposals plot a course of thinking in line with the growing consensus across the European continent that strict control and monitoring of people will help to cope with the influx of illegal immigrants and the post-September 11th threat of infiltration by terrorist cells.

Fingerprinting technology already in place

The German criminal investigators believe that the technology to pursue the fingerprinting is already in place and that the process would be easy enough to implement across the country.

Across Europe steps to monitor the movement and numbers of citizens in the member states have already led to governments implementing control policies.

Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish interior minister, told parliamentary colleagues in Rome earlier this year that immigration was the "single most important phenomenon" Europe would deal with in the coming years.

Spanish law changed to allow printing of street children

In their own effort to crack down on illegal immigration, Spanish authorities plan to round up foreign-born street children and fingerprint them.

Many of the children are smuggled into Spain to beg. The Spanish government amended the Foreigners Law so that it can fingerprint the children, house them and identify them.

X-ray equipment will be used to determine the age of the children, because the Spanish government believes some young adults pretend to be teenagers to avoid deportation. Under Spanish law, children may not be deported.

Italy leads with monitoring of foreigners and immigrants

Italy too has successfully pushed through a contentious crackdown on immigrants through its parliament despite splits in the government and protests from civil rights groups.

The Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, fast-tracked a bill through parliament in May allowing all foreign residents and immigrants to be fingerprinted. The policy does not stretch to foreign tourists on short visits to the country.

Although Berlusconi came up against heavy opposition to the bill, he vowed to unify his cabinet behind it and successfully sweep out those foreigners who are in the country illegally and deploy the navy against human traffickers if necessary.

"We don't want Europe to turn into a fortress, but we want to promote an integrated model that will guarantee the security of our citizens within our common space," the Italian interior minister, Claudio Scajola, told colleagues in the Italian parliament at the time the bill was passed.

Italy has also put forward a feasibility study for an EU border guard, which the European commission wants in place by 2007. It includes ideas for common legislation, shared information and a mobile police rapid reaction unit.

South American practices to sweep EU member states?

If widespread fingerprinting for citizens is adopted across Europe, it will become a continent similar to South America where inhabitants in Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina and Brazil carry personal identification containing prints. Even nationals living in other countries have to provide fingerprints for their home country passports.

Could this be the next step for Europeans?