Smartphone Data Extraction in the Context of Asylum

Development summary

Víctor Herraiz Jagerovic’s article focuses on smartphone data extraction (SDE) by the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) in asylum proceedings. It examines the practice of asking the asylum seeker to sign a consent form before extraction, the enhanced duty to cooperate under the new Asylum Procedure Regulation, and the GDPR requirement that consent be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous; the article concludes that the “freely given” condition is not met, so the practice is unlawful if consent is used as the legal basis.