WorthyNews: Europe’s Top Court Forces Identity Fingerprints Despite Legal Worries (Worthy News In-Depth)

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By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

LUXEMBOURG CITY/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Human rights activists have expressed concern about Europe’s highest court agreeing that Europeans can be forced to give their fingerprints for national identity documents (IDs).

The Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice (ECJ) upheld a previous ruling to have two fingerprints on identity cards after it was challenged at a court in Germany.

However, the ECJ warned that the practice can only continue till December 2026 as the current legislation, which applies to all European Union member states, requires unanimity.

The EU regulation on obliging fingerprints was adopted in 2019 despite the Czech Republic and Slovakia voting against it. Both nations still remember far-reaching government control when they were still part of Russian-occupied Czechoslovakia till the collapse of communism in 1989.

“If [all EU] member states do not reach an agreement, the legal basis for the continued storage and mandatory new collection of fingerprints would no longer apply” after 2026, noted Anja Hoffmann, a digital economy expert at the Center for European Policy.

The ruling came after a German court in the western city of Wiesbaden asked the ECJ to review the validity of the EU regulation calling for two fingerprints to be stored on an individual’s identity card.

In 2021, Detlev Sieber, the managing director of rights group Digitalcourage, filed a lawsuit at the Administrative Court in Wiesbaden after he requested an identity card with an electronic function without submitting his fingerprints.

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

Digitalcourage argued that the EU fingerprints requirement interferes with fundamental rights established in European law and could lead to identity theft.

In January 2022, the Wiesbaden court followed Digitalcourage’s argument, referring the lawsuit to the ECJ.

One month later, the Hamburg Administrative Court suspended the fingerprint requirement for ID cards, pending the proceedings before the ECJ.

Before Thursday’s final ruling, the ECJ Advocate Genera Laila Medina declared last June that the compulsory fingerprinting on identity cards is valid, in what was seen as a preliminary decision for the final judgment.

The judgment was welcome news for the German Ministry of Interior, which argued that fingerprints are safe and locally stored on a chip integrated into the ID card.

However, Digitalcourage told the Euractiv news site that “a storage method that is still considered safe by authorities today can be easy to crack in just a few years.”

Storing entire fingerprints “increases the risk of identity theft if a data leak occurs” and “contradicts” the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the group claimed.

IDENTITY THEFT

However, the ECJ said fingerprints on IDs were important in the prevention of identity theft and the interoperability of verification systems.

The court ruled that the benefits of such a system made it compatible with “the right to respect for private life and the protection of personal data.”

The court also said a facial image can be inefficient, as “a face can change due to illness, aging, lifestyle, and surgery.”

Thursday’s ECJ ruling meant that, like in other EU member states, anyone in Germany must continue to register two fingerprints when applying for identity cards.

The ruling has been in place since August 2022.

Rights activists hope that the obligatory fingerprints will end after 2026 if no unanimity can be reached among all 27 EU member states.

“This would mean that national authorities would have to issue ID cards without taking fingerprints, and ID card holders could request the deletion of fingerprints already stored on ID cards,” Hoffmann added.

But for now, that remains wishful thinking.

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