Biometric experiments and arbitrary practices on people on the move

Over the past month, Lampedusa has become a testing ground for the introduction of new screening and border management tools, most notably the new "Screening Toolbox" package made available by the Frontex Agency. The pilot, which lasted from October 13th to 24th 2025 at the Lampedusa hotspot and was carried out by Frontex in collaboration with EUAA and EUROPOL staff, is aimed at operationalising new screening and border procedures in preparation for the implementation of the highly criticised new EU Pact on Asylum and Migration, which entered into force in January 2026 and will spread effects from June 12th, 2026. As reported in the following article (https://www.euaa.europa.eu/news-events/Frontex-euaa-europol-and-italy-pilot-new-screening-process-lampedusa) and in line with the so-called Screening Regulation, screening of migrants consists of preliminary health and vulnerability checks, provision of information, biometric data collection, and registration in EURODAC; identification and security checks, including consultation of EU border management systems, such as the Schengen Information System (SIS), the Visa Information System (VIS), the Entry-Exit System (EES), and the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS). Essentially, the package translates into the collection and entry of sensitive data into database systems shared on a large scale among Schengen area countries, legitimizing a series of obscure yet standardized procedures in Lampedusa that could constitute ongoing privacy violations. Unlawful practices also include arbitrary confiscation of phones and passports upon arrival at the dock. Additional risks associated with feeding such a large amount of data are the creation of bottlenecks in IT systems. Concrete examples are the unlawful rejection of legitimate asylum applications due to software flaws, bugs, and cases of identical names between migrants and their families[1]. For example, a Cameroonian woman staying at a CAS in Puglia last month witnessed the loss of her personal data from the Shenghen information system (SIS), which prevented her from lodging an international protection application.

Therefore, the new "Screening Toolbox" package, within the broader framework of policies for the criminalization, detention, rejection, and deportation of migrants and asylum seekers—promoted and validated by the European Union—is a cog in the wheel of accelerated border procedures that, taken together, contribute to the erosion and suspension of several fundamental rights, above all the right to asylum and international protection. Experts claim that the effects caused by the introduction of these measures might entail, among other issues, lowering the procedural guarantees, as well as the increased likelihood of administrative detention in detention centers and other detention facilities scattered throughout Italy, and an increase in repatriations[2].

This festering system, is characterzed by systemic procedural opacities, where violations of the right to asylum, privacy, and the best interest of the child become daily practice. We witness this coming to daylight when Frontex conducts repeated interrogations conducted of unaccompanied minors once disembarked at Molo Favaloro[3]. The Agency continues to operate in a gray area of law, insinuating itself into the wounds of the rule of law by virtue of a now permanent systemic exceptionality, where it is no longer possible to distinguish between violence and legitimacy, within a process of continuous compression of fundamental human rights to the detriment of those of people on the move. It forcefully re-emerges that violence and policies of subjugation are not a deviation from the system, but rather constitute one of its structural products, articulated through the border dispositifs of the nation-state, where the distinction between what is to be protected and what is to be "criminalized" responds solely to political interests.

In this dehumanizing scenario, the logic of rearmament and growing militarization becomes dominant and forcefully re-emerges on multiple levels and with varying intensities in the central Mediterranean. While they are impacting bodies, imaginations, and places—primarily in border zones, be they at sea, in the air, or on land—every shipwreck, the latest occurring just a few days before Christmas, costing the lives of 116 people[4], increasingly takes on the character of a state massacre. The criminalization of ship captains becomes a sacrificial act aimed at exonerating the responsibilities of criminal, falsely moralistic, and hypocritical European policies. Instead, the "Screening Tool box" operates as biometric attack on people on the move, deepening the violence of the border regime and normalizing the suspension of rights through the logic of permanent exceptionality as a mode of governance.

The European Union continues to promote border control and management mechanisms in which rights are classified on a racial basis, de facto tied to the country of origin. It also invests billions of euros in negotiations to externalize borders with non-European countries deemed "safe." In this context, on December 8, the Council of Europe approved a new common system for repatriations, further extending the applicability of the concept of a safe country (https://www.asgi.it/asilo-e-protezione-internazionale/rimpatri-e-paesi-sicuri-le-proposte-del-consiglio-dellunione-europea-mortificano-i-diritti-fondamentali/).

Once again, we continue to monitor what is happening in the central Mediterranean, denouncing the EU's border regimes and what is happening in Lampedusa. Once again, we are working to disseminate counterinformation and provide a comprehensive vision based on solidarity, human rights, and support for people on the move, because migration is not a crime!

[1] The dangers associated with the use of biometric data for these purposes have been the subject of analysis and criticism by the European Agency for Fundamental Rights for years: https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2018/under-watchful-eyes-biometrics-eu-it-systems-and-fundamental-rights

[2] See ECRE's analysis at: https://ecre.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/ECRE_Comments_Screening-Regulation.pdf

[3] These are so-called 'debriefing interviews,' a practice that has no legal basis and has been repeatedly censored by EU bodies. See the decision of the European Data Protection Supervisor: https://media.euobserver.com/b7396d825d27da395206a6535a4f69ca.pdf ; as well as that of the European Ombudsman: https://www.ombudsman.europa.eu/et/decision/en/171951 . More generally, these practices have also attracted media attention, which has reported on their methods and critical issues: https://wearesolomon.com/mag/format/investigation/frontex-unlawfully-shared-thousands-of-peoples-personal-data-with-europol/.

[4] On 19 december, off the coast of Tunisia, a deadly shipwreck occurred that claimed the lives of 116 people, leaving only one survivor. Following the alert raised by the NGO Alarm Phone, the Italian Coast Guard confirmed receipt of the report but nevertheless terminated the communication withput providing any further feedback, while the Libyan Coast Guard stated that it had not carried out any rescue or interception operations on 18 or 19 December.