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Europe is Using Smartphone Data as a Weapon To Deport Refugees (wired.co.uk)

Governments are using migrants' smartphones to deport them. From a report: Across the continent, migrants are being confronted by a booming mobile forensics industry that specialises in extracting a smartphone's messages, location history, and even WhatsApp data. That information can potentially be turned against the phone owners themselves. In 2017 both Germany and Denmark expanded laws that enabled immigration officials to extract data from asylum seekers' phones. Similar legislation has been proposed in Belgium and Austria, while the UK and Norway have been searching asylum seekers' devices for years.

Following right-wing gains across the EU, beleaguered governments are scrambling to bring immigration numbers down. Tackling fraudulent asylum applications seems like an easy way to do that. As European leaders met in Brussels last week to thrash out a new, tougher framework to manage migration -- which nevertheless seems insufficient to placate Angela Merkel's critics in Germany -- immigration agencies across Europe are showing new enthusiasm for laws and software that enable phone data to be used in deportation cases. Admittedly, some refugees do lie on their asylum applications.

8 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. Counterpoint. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Europe is using smartphone data as a tool to help repatriate lost runaways.

    1. Re:Counterpoint. by blindseer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Europe is using smartphone data as a tool to help repatriate lost runaways.

      Precisely. We want to see families reunited. We know that ripping children from their mothers cannot be tolerated, therefore we should do the best we can to send children back to their mothers. Or at least returned to their motherland and their extended family.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  2. Re:Part of the Plan for a Police State by iggymanz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    No, big difference between finding and removing immigration criminals and citizens.

    Countries have borders and immigration laws. There is no problem using whatever means to locate immigration criminals.

  3. About that... by Okian+Warrior · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Useful idiots like Merkel just brought on the much needed police state. Once those pesky rapefugees are gone, they'll be using those tools on the native population.

    All apart of the plan.

    Useful idiots like Merkel just brought on the much needed police state. Once those pesky rapefugees are gone, they'll be using those tools on the native population.

    All apart of the plan.

    Yeah, right. About that...

    It would appear that unrestricted immigration and taking refugees is something the people don't want, both in the EU and here in the US.

    In the US we allow about 1.1 million legal immigrants per year, which is generous in comparison to any other country. That's enough to skew the economy, make jobs hard to get, and puts a burden on the infrastructure. Letting unrestricted migrants in could cripple the country, possibly bring it down.

    Non-citizens can apparently vote, and there's a big push in CA to force the census bureau to remove the citizenship question in the next census.

    After the census is tallied, it means that CA gets 3 [US House] more representatives due to non-citizens, and for all states non-citizens total about 7 house representatives.

    (Question: Is giving non-citizens legislative power like that insane? Asking for a friend...)

    I have no Earthly idea why Merkel and the rest of the EU is so hell-bent on getting more refugees. Refugees are causing a lot of problems, it's clearly something the member states don't want, and there's apparently no end in sight. The whole refugee thing started because of Arab Spring (remember that?), which was 8 years ago!

    My best guess is that being called "nazi" is still a big thing in Europe, and they'll do anything to save face and avoid being called that name. Trash their own country by virtue signalling.

    Anyway...

    The basic problem is that the people really don't want unrestricted immigration. It's something that people can readily see, and that affects them directly. Trump's approval rating actually went *up* during the recent protests.

    When the government does something the people *really* don't like, it's the government that has to change.

    1. Re:About that... by blindseer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      (Question: Is giving non-citizens legislative power like that insane? Asking for a friend...)

      Yes, that is insane.

      We are now seeing Democrats advocating for allowing people in prison to vote. I don't mean allowing people that were once in prison and now out free, I'm talking about people in prison having a polling booth available to them inside the prison walls. That's insane. I could be convinced of allowing convicted felons being allowed to vote after being released and serving out any probation. Letting people that immigrated illegally to get a vote, get a license to drive, get a job, send their kids to school, is encouraging more law breaking.

      --
      I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
    2. Re:About that... by king+neckbeard · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Drugs generally aren't worth punishment, and that's what kind of non-violent offender fills our prisons. As for the violence, I'm talking about the first time they were put in a cage being unjust. The later violence is often hard to avoid, due to the fact that our prisons don't rehabilitate, and the first offense will lead to difficulty finding employment, which leads to more drugs and often, to violent crime. Judging those people doesn't really work with standard moral views, because they are caught up by forces much larger than them. The real problem is systemic, and as people who understand first-hand how the system is broken, they deserve to have their input heard on fixing it.

      Universal suffrage should be considered the norm, and the necessity for excluding a group from said suffrage needs a strong rationale. So long as the majority of the population thinks crime is bad, and a minority of the population is in prison, we don't really risk actual criminals getting extreme leniency. What we do see is amnesty for bullshit crimes, which Obama did quite a bit of, and states are starting to do as well. Blindseer is obsessing over a completely contrived hypothetical.

      --
      This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
  4. A soldier in the UK working immigration said... by VAXcat · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He related that manyl of the refugees he'd come across seemed to have managed to lose all of their identity papers and documents, but all of them seemed to have been able to hold on to their smartphones and selfie sticks.

    --
    There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
  5. Re:Refugees, asylum seekers, migrants by Obfuscant · · Score: 4, Interesting

    But what about lying about your name or the town you came from

    "I am from Berne, and my name is Mr. Bimler ... this is my friend Mr. Hilter and he most recently lived in Vienna.

    Lying about your name prevents validation of your status in the country you are fleeing, including criminal and political. By lying about your name you are deliberately trying to bypass the legal process of asylum, and should be deported. If you are going to lie to get into the country, what other laws are you going to break once you are here?

    Remember that refugees are fleeing something, and they don't know the system

    Are you seriously trying to claim that they don't know they are lying ("don't know the system")? Or that they don't trust the place they are trying to gain entry to? Then why would they flee to that country if they don't trust that country? That's leaping from the frying pan into the fire, isn't it?

    Go somewhere that lying is acceptable and that you trust. Bye.

    A zero tolerance policy is unfair.

    It is quite fair to the people who already live here, and to those who obey the laws to try to gain entry. It is certainly fair to those who are refused asylum for cause when they tell the truth.