The Central Register of Foreign Nationals (German: Ausländerzentralregister (AZR)) is a German database, containing personal information about approximately 26 million foreign nationals.[1][2] Of these, as of February 2009, approximately 4.5 million are EU citizens.[3]

The Central Register of Foreign Nationals provides data to over 7000 authorities and organizations, including police and customs authorities with over 80,000 users.[4]

According to section 26 of the law governing the Central Foreigners Register, personal data stored about individual foreigners in Germany can also be passed to the authorities of foreign states.[5]

History

The predecessor of the Central Register of Foreign Nationals was the Ausländerzentralkartei which was established in 1938 by the Nazi government.[6] In 1953 the Central Register of Foreign Nationals was established.

Criticism

The Federal office responsible for administering the Central Register of Foreign Nationals was awarded a Big Brother Award for their operation of the database, for the given reason of "institutionalized official discrimination of non-German citizens in Germany".[7]

References

  1. ↑ "BVA Internet: Ausländerzentralregister". Archived from the original on 10 July 2013. Retrieved 4 December 2013.
  2. ↑ "Ausländerzentralregister" (in German). Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  3. ↑ Federal Government of Germany: Drucksache 16/12569 - Speicherung von Unionsbürgerinnen und Unionsbürgern im Ausländerzentralregister (PDF; 71 kB). 6 April 2009
  4. ↑ "Bundesverwaltungsamt - Ausländerzentralregister". bva.bund.de. Retrieved 13 August 2015.
  5. ↑ "Gesetz über das Ausländerzentralregister (AZRGesetz)" (PDF). Gesetze-im-internet.de. Retrieved 9 July 2015.
  6. ↑ National Approaches to the Administration of International Migration, p. 75, at Google Books
  7. ↑ "Lebenswerk: Bundesverwaltungsamt | BigBrotherAwards" (in German). Bigbrotherawards.de. 25 February 2015. Archived from the original on 10 July 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2015.


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