AI-enabled identification management of the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF)

Summary

The German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees is implementing a pioneering system from 2016 to 2020 to increase efficiency of asylum procedures. The software of the “Integrated Identity Management” (IDM) supports BAMF caseworkers to register asylum seekers and to gather information about their country of origin and their travel history.

Results

The system applies a number of tools, such as automated name transcriptions from non-Latin to Latin letters; automated dialect identification to validate the registered country of origin; automated picture checks to prevent doubling files of an asylum-seeker, and sourcing information from smart phones to gather further identity information in case identity documents were lost. Overall, this is a holistic, digital system to increase the efficiency of registering and processing asylum applications in Germany. Some parts of it – for instance, the automated dialect identification and name transcription – can potentially be used in other nations as well, depending on the applicable legal framework.

(Picture: © BAMF)