The Central Register of Foreign Nationals (German: Ausländerzentralregister (AZR) ) is a German database , containing 20 million foreign nationals . [1] Of these, as of February 2009, approximately 4.5 million are EU citizens. [2]
The Central Register of Foreign Nationals provides over 7,000 organizations and organizations, with over 80,000 users. [3]
According to section 26 of the law governing the Central Foreigners Register, personal data stored on individual foreigners in Germany may also be passed to the authorities of foreign states. [4]
History
The predecessor of the Central Register of Foreign Nationals was the Ausländerzentralkartei which was established in 1938 by the Nazi government. [5] In 1953 the Central Register of Foreign Nationals was established.
Criticism
The Federal Office responsible for administering the Central Register of Foreign Nationals has been awarded a Big Brother Award for their operation of the database, for the reason of „institutionalized official discrimination of non-German citizens in Germany“. [6]
References
- Jump up^ „Internet BVA: Ausländerzentralregister“ . Archived from the original on 10 July 2013 . Retrieved 4 December 2013 .
- Jump up^ Federal Government of Germany:Drucksache 16/12569 – Speicherung von Unionsbuergerinnen und Unionsbürgern im Ausländerzentralregister(PDF, 71 kB). 6 April 2009
- Jump up^ „Bundesverwaltungsamt – Ausländerzentralregister“ . bva.bund.de . Retrieved 13 August 2015 .
- Jump up^ „Gesetz über das Ausländerzentralregister (AZRGesetz)“ (PDF) . Gesetze-im-internet.de . Retrieved 9 July 2015 .
- Jump up^ National Approaches to the Administration of International Migration , p. 75, atGoogle Books
- Jump up^ „Lebenswerk: Bundesverwaltungsamt | BigBrotherAwards“ (in German). Bigbrotherawards.de. 25 February 2015. Archived from the original on 10 July 2014 . Retrieved 9 July 2015 .