During the asylum procedure, SEM may, for the purpose of establishing the asylum seeker’s identity, nationality or travel route, process the asylum seeker’s personal data, stored on electronic data carriers, in the cloud or by cloud services, including sensitive personal data as defined in Article 5 letter c of the Data Protection Act of 25 September 20201(FADP).
Personal data pertaining to third parties may only be processed if the processing of the asylum seeker’s personal data is insufficient to achieve the objectives under paragraph 1.
Electronic data carriers are in particular:
mobile telephones, smartphones, smartwatches and SIM cards;
computers, laptops, notebooks and tablets;
storage media such as USB sticks, SD memory cards, DVDs and CD-ROMs.
SEM shall evaluate the necessity and proportionality of the procedure under this article for each individual case beforehand.
Pending analysis, the personal data may be stored on a secure server operated by the Federal Department of Justice and Police (FDJP).
On being requested to hand over their electronic data carriers to SEM in accordance with Article 8 paragraph 1 letter g, asylum seekers shall be informed of the intended procedure, in particular its purpose, form, the type of data analysed, the methods of analysis and storage, and the details of the deletion of the data.
The analysis is generally carried out during the preparatory phase (Art. 26). It is carried out by SEM personnel in the presence of the asylum seeker, unless the asylum seeker waives the right to be present or refuses to be present during the analysis. The analysis is recorded in a report. It is carried out on the basis of the data stored temporarily in accordance with paragraph 5 and, if necessary, by examining the electronic data carrier.
After analysis, the personal data stored in accordance with paragraph 5 shall be deleted. All personal data shall be automatically deleted no later than one year after it has been stored.
All data that have been analysed shall be stored in the asylum file. The asylum seeker may comment on the analysis.
The Federal Council shall specify which data may be collected in accordance with paragraph 1 and shall regulate access and the details of the analysis of the personal data.