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Checking migrants' fingerprints

The UK Border Agency and its counterparts in a number of countries have agreements in place for the checking of migrants' fingerprint information against one another's records.

These agreements make it easier for us to confirm the identity and history of immigration and asylum applicants, and to detect migrants with criminal histories in other countries. But they also ensure that people's personal information continues to be protected.

Since 2003, the fingerprints of asylum applicants and illegal entrants to European countries have been checked against a central database to detect whether they have previously sought asylum in or illegally entered another European country.

And in June 2009 the Five Country Conference (FCC) - a forum for co-operation between the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA on immigration and border security initiatives - agreed a 'high value data sharing protocol' that will enable us to check fingerprints against a wider range of records.

The protocol is now up and running between Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. The USA will be joining shortly, and New Zealand (which became part of the FCC earlier this year) is considering legislation to join in the near future.

Under the protocol, we will be able securely to check fingerprints of asylum, enforcement and foreign criminal cases across the FCC countries. Biographic information - which can include information such as names, date of birth and nationality - will not be exchanged unless the checks detect a match. Further information (about the person's immigration status and history, for example) may also be exchanged if it is relevant to the particular case.

The protocol does not cover the sharing of fingerprint information about people known to be nationals of FCC countries.

To ensure that all of the data sharing will be lawful, proportionate and secure, we carried out a privacy impact assessment (PIA) while developing the arrangements for this protocol. The PIA report, which you can download from the right side of this page, contains more information about how the protocol operates.