(Reuters) Three refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Cameroon are suing the German state for accessing personal data on their mobile phones, arguing it was an unnecessary invasion of privacy, their lawyer said on Tuesday.
German authorities can examine the mobile phones of asylum seekers who do not have valid identity documents under a law passed in 2017 at the height of the migrant crisis in Europe to prevent asylum fraud.
But the Berlin-based Society for Civil Rights (GFF), which filed the lawsuits on behalf of the three refugees, argues that this violates their human rights.
“The BAMF (Germany’s ministry for migration and refugees) is disregarding the strict constitutional rules by which the state must abide when accessing personal data,” said Lea Beckmann, a lawyer at the GFF.
