Federal Act
on Foreign Nationals and Integration
(Foreign Nationals and Integration Act, FNIA)¹

¹ The bor­der posts and the po­lice au­thor­it­ies in the can­tons and com­munes shall im­me­di­ately ob­tain a full set of fin­ger­prints from any for­eign na­tion­al who is over the age of 14, if the per­son con­cerned, has entered Switzer­land il­leg­ally and has not been re­turned.

a.

enters Switzer­land il­leg­ally from a state that is not bound by any of the Dub­lin As­so­ci­ation Agree­ments;

b.

has not been re­turned or has with a view to de­port­a­tion been un­der ar­rest or in de­ten­tion for the en­tire peri­od between their ap­pre­hen­sion and their re­mov­al.

² In ad­di­tion to the fin­ger­prints, the fol­low­ing data shall be ob­tained:

a.

the place and date of ap­pre­hen­sion in Switzer­land;

b.

the sex of the ap­pre­hen­ded per­son;

c.

the date on which the fin­ger­prints were taken;

d.

the Swiss code num­ber for the fin­ger­prints;

e.

the date on which the data was trans­mit­ted to the Cent­ral Unit.

f.

the user pass­word.

³ The data re­cor­ded un­der para­graphs 1 and 2 shall be trans­mit­ted to the Cent­ral Unit with­in 72 hours of the per­son con­cerned be­ing ap­pre­hen­ded. If the per­son con­cerned is held in de­ten­tion for longer than 72 hours, the data must be trans­mit­ted be­fore they are re­leased.

4 If the con­di­tion of the fin­gers of the per­son con­cerned do not al­low fin­ger­prints to be taken, the fin­ger­prints must be trans­mit­ted to the Cent­ral Unit with­in 48 hours of fin­ger­prints of ac­cept­able qual­ity be­ing taken. If it is im­possible to take fin­ger­prints due to the state of health of the per­son con­cerned or due to pub­lic health meas­ures, the fin­ger­prints must be trans­mit­ted to the Cent­ral Unit with­in 48 hours of the im­ped­i­ment ceas­ing to ap­ply.

⁵ If the trans­mis­sion of data is pre­ven­ted by ser­i­ous tech­nic­al prob­lems, an ad­di­tion­al peri­od of 48 hours shall be al­lowed in or­der to take the meas­ures re­quired to en­sure that the sys­tem op­er­ates cor­rectly again.

⁶ The bor­der posts and the im­mig­ra­tion and po­lice au­thor­it­ies in the can­tons and com­munes may ob­tain a full set of fin­ger­prints from any for­eign na­tion­al who is over the age of 14 and who is resid­ing il­leg­ally in Switzer­land in or­der to es­tab­lish wheth­er they have already made an ap­plic­a­tion for asylum in an­oth­er state that is bound by any of the Dub­lin As­so­ci­ation Agree­ments.

⁷ The data ob­tained in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1, 2 and 6 shall be trans­mit­ted to the SEM for passing on to the Cent­ral Unit.

⁸ The data trans­mit­ted in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1 and 2 shall be stored by the Cent­ral Unit in the Eurodac data­base and shall be auto­mat­ic­ally erased 18 months after the fin­ger­prints are taken. The SEM shall im­me­di­ately re­quest the Cent­ral Unit to erase the data be­fore this date as soon as it is no­ti­fied that the for­eign na­tion­al con­cerned:

a.

has been gran­ted a res­id­ence per­mit in Switzer­land;

b.

has left the sov­er­eign ter­rit­ory of the states that are bound by any of the Dub­lin As­so­ci­ation Agree­ments;

c.

has been gran­ted cit­izen­ship of a state that is bound by any of the Dub­lin As­so­ci­ation Agree­ments.

⁹ Art­icles 102b–102g AsylA³⁷⁹ ap­ply to the pro­ced­ures un­der para­graphs 1–8.