Asylum Act
(AsylA)

¹ Fin­ger­prints of all fin­gers as well as pho­to­graphs shall be taken of asylum seekers and per­sons in need of pro­tec­tion. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide for ex­cep­tions in the case of minors un­der the age of 14.²⁹¹

² The fin­ger­prints and pho­to­graphs shall be stored without the cor­res­pond­ing per­son­al de­tails in data­base man­aged by the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice and SEM.²⁹²

³ The new fin­ger­prints shall be com­pared with the fin­ger­print data­base man­aged by the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice.²⁹³

⁴ If the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Po­lice de­term­ines a match with ex­ist­ing fin­ger­prints, it shall in­form SEM, the can­ton­al po­lice au­thor­it­ies con­cerned and the Fron­ti­er Guards Corps and provide them with the per­son­al de­tails of the per­son con­cerned (name, first name, ali­ases, date of birth, sex, ref­er­ence num­ber, per­son­al num­ber, na­tion­al­ity, pro­cess con­trol num­ber and can­ton of al­loc­a­tion). Where there is a po­lice re­port, the date, place and reas­on for tak­ing the fin­ger­prints con­tained therein shall also be provided in code form.²⁹⁴

⁵ SEM shall use this in­form­a­tion to:

a.

check the iden­tity the per­son con­cerned;

b.

check wheth­er the per­son con­cerned has already ap­plied for asylum be­fore;

c.

check wheth­er there is data that con­firms or re­futes the state­ments made by the per­son con­cerned;

d.

check wheth­er there is data that call in­to ques­tion the eli­gib­il­ity of the per­son con­cerned to be gran­ted asylum;

e.

fa­cil­it­ate ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance between SEM and the po­lice au­thor­it­ies.

⁶ The per­son­al data trans­mit­ted in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 4 may not be dis­closed abroad without the con­sent of the own­er of the data col­lec­tion. Art­icle 6 para­graph 1 of the FADP²⁹⁵ ap­plies mu­tatis mutandis.

⁷ The data shall be erased:

a.

if asylum is gran­ted;

b.

at the latest ten years after the leg­ally bind­ing re­jec­tion, with­draw­al or aban­don­ment of the ap­plic­a­tion for asylum or after a de­cision to dis­miss the ap­plic­a­tion;

c.²⁹⁶

in the case of per­sons in need of pro­tec­tion, at the latest ten years after the lift­ing of the tem­por­ary pro­tec­tion.