European migrant crisis spurs interest in biometrics

Migrant crisis: EU considers locking up more failed asylum seekers (Financial Times)

EU countries should lock up more failed asylum seekers, according to hardline plans the bloc is considering to increase the number of deportations from Europe.

The proposal is one of a series of tough measures — ranging from increased use of fingerprints to more funding for detention centres — that interior ministers from across the EU will discuss at a meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday.

Jakarta to Regularize Internal Indonesian Migrants

A lot of government funding for services is tied to how many people are living in a particular geography. In Indonesia, it looks like you're supposed to ask permission/tell the government when you change your residence.

City to embrace newcomers as legal residents (The Jakarta Post)

As part of the data collection process, residents were to visit their local subdistrict offices to provide basic information and have their biometric data recorded. The information would then be sent to the ministry database to be validated.

The e-ID program was scheduled for all 267 subdistrict offices in Jakarta and 197 regencies and municipalities across the country, in the middle of last year.

The central government has targeted to establish a single identity number for every citizen and distribute e-ID cards to more than 105 million citizens by the end of 2012.

The electronic card will have a chip that contains information on marital status, blood type, parent names, employment, disabilities, birth and divorce certificate, and date of birth among others.

Tanzania Using Biometrics to Cope with Horn of Africa Chaos

It seems like West Africa is more active in the biometrics world. Here's some biometrics news from East Africa.

Tanzania Inaugurates Japan-Funded Immigration Facilities (Modern Ghana)

A 2009 IOM study "In Pursuit of the Southern Dream" suggested that some 17,000-20,000 mainly young men from Somalia and Ethiopia are smuggled through Tanzania en route to South Africa every year.
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In each location the Japanese-funded project has allowed IOM, in close collaboration with Tanzanian police and immigration counterparts, to construct and extend premises where the migrants can be housed and screened.

It has also provided IT equipment to allow Tanzanian immigration officers to capture biographic and biometric data in order to create a record of all migrants passing through land border posts. The project has also donated 11 cars and three boats.