Germany moves to seize phone and #laptop #data from people seeking asylum
Since 2015, Germany has welcomed more refugees than any other country in Europe. Now, amid mounting public criticism over Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policies, the famously privacy-conscious country is poised to pass a new law aimed at strengthening border security — at the expense of asylum seekers’ privacy.
A draft law announced by the interior ministry last month would allow German authorities to seize data from the smartphones, laptops, and tablets of people seeking asylum in the country, in order to determine their identities and nationalities. Previously, officials were only allowed to seize personal data with the consent of asylum seekers; the proposed law would make it mandatory to comply with such requests. The Federal…
