Privacy ombudsman warns against access to migrants' cells

(ANSA) - ROME, OCT 24 - The head of Italy's privacy authority, Pasquale Stanzione, on Thursday said it was necessary to reflect on a measure in the migrant flow decree recently approved by the government which allows security forces to access the cell phones and other electronic devices of asylum seekers or migrants held at repatriation centres who don't cooperate in their identification.
    Stanzione told the Lower House's first commission that he is examining the text and that it is "appropriate to evaluate the proportionality" of the measure and to preventively ask judicial authorities to examine it.
    He stressed that particular attention must be given to migrant minors as access to electronic devices is also granted by the legislation in the case of "unaccompanied foreign minors".
    The flow decree approved by the cabinet earlier this month to regulate the legal entry of foreign workers allows, among other things, security forces to check a migrant's cell phone and other electronic devices in a procedure the government has said is aimed at "guaranteeing the identification of migrants or at least their geographical origin", without the possibility of accessing messages or "any form of communication". (ANSA).