Finland and 15 other European countries are launching a new system today to keep track of the movements of asylum-seekers by taking down their fingerprints.

   

The purpose is to stop abuse of the asylum system, by preventing people who are not in any real danger in their home countries from moving around from one European country to another applying for asylum in each one.

The fingerprints are to be sent

to Eurodac, a joint fingerprint registry, along with information on where and when the person in question submitted the asylum application.

   

The Eurodac system is coming into effect today in all European Union countries except Denmark, which plans to join it later this year. In addition to the EU countries, Norway and Iceland are taking part.

In Finland the system is being used

by officials of the Frontier Guard and the police. All asylum seekers aged 14 and over are to be fingerprinted, and the information be sent to a central office in Luxembourg, where officials will check to see if the person in question has applied for asylum in any of the other Eurodac countries.

   

According to Matti Heinonen of Finland's Directorate of Immigration, the purpose is to prevent abuse of the system, and not to bounce applicants from one country to another.

   

"In deciding on whether or not to grant a residence permit, it is relevant to know if the applicant has spent ten years in Europe, or if he or she was persecuted in his or her home country a month ago", Heinonen points out.

   

Some asylum applicants deliberately destroy their identification documents to conceal previous asylum applications. A fingerprint registry is aimed at bringing these cases to light. However, the system is not expected to bring rapid results.

   

Heinonen believes that it will take a few years before the registry is extensive enough. The data concerning each applicant is to remain in the system for about ten years.

   

"When news about the system spreads around the world, people will start to understand that there is no point in applying for asylum without reason", Heinonen says. He also feels that by shortening the processing time of asylum applications, the new system is in the interests of the asylum seekers themselves.