The independent research that informs this reporting was funded through a Fulbright scholarship undertaken at Georgetown University in Washington DC. The views and information do not represent the Fulbright Programme, the US government or the New Zealand Government.
By Gill Bonnett of RNZ
What started as a scheme to check the identities of a few thousand asylum seekers has spiralled into a vast network of data about everyone who comes and goes from the Five Eyes nations.
[…]
New Zealand, the US, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom — commonly known as the Five Eyes partners — have for the past 15 years built a burgeoning network to share ever more information about the people who cross each country’s border.
At first, the agreement was to check mainly asylum seekers’ fingerprints with one another — up to 3000 fingerprints each annually. When there was a match, more information would be shared.
But the hunger for more data has had that jump to 30,000 and then 400,000 — per country, per partner, per year — a total of 8 million checks. And it’s now not only asylum seekers, but any traveller, visitor or migrant. Those “maximums” can also be increased by mutual consent. The UK now says it may reach the point where it checks everyone it can with its Migration 5 partners.
Read more at The New Zealand Herald.
h/t, Joe Cadillic