European governments keen to bring the refugee crisis under control are considering using apps, biometrics and smart cards to attempt to manage refugees before they leave countries with border crossings into the EU.

EU states in partnership with Frontex, the EU external border agency, have asked tech companies to pitch ways to track and control people trying to reach the continent before they get here.

For those who do reach Europe, a smartcard ID system could be used to control access to food and accommodation, under one proposal.. Another suggestion is to tempt refugees to download tracking apps on their smartphones by offering helpful information about sea crossings and conditions in different EU countries.

A meeting discussing technology to “manage” the flow of refugees took place on the island of Lesbos at the end of last month, coordinated by Frontex, along with Eulisa, the European agency that deals with frameworks and structures for European databases, and EASO, the European Asylum Support Office.

Representatives from EU member states attended and several tech companies were invited to present proposals. The firms included Securiport LLC, Crossmatch, Unisys, Thales and 3M.

Under one proposal, a smartcard ID system could be used to control access to food and accommodation. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Officials from Unisys said their technology could help prevent some migrants from coming to Europe at all, discourage others from making hazardous sea crossings and reduce the role of smugglers. It said its plans would be to begin tracking as many refugees as possible before they flee conflict zones or while they are in refugee camps close to these conflict zones.

Rudolf De Schipper of Unisys told the Guardian: “We understand that the EU wants to provide something quickly. At the meeting they were looking for solutions that can be deployed and rolled out in a matter of months.”

He said he expected there would be a tendering and procurement process across the EU. “We can go from a situation where there is hardly any control to a situation where you can see where people are in Europe. The moment you start controlling things in difficult situations people tend to comply,” he said. However, he added that while tech companies can provide technical solutions it is for EU states to decide how the technology would be rolled out.

Refugee support groups and privacy organisations, however, questioned suggestions that IT companies could persuade people to put tracking apps on their phones in exchange for information about weather and the safety of different routes.

Refugees already have access to that kind of data from informal networks, they say, and the extremely dangerous circumstances of their trip are a constant reminder that the EU does not want them to cross borders. That makes them unlikely to embrace an app that would make them easier for European governments to follow and intercept.

Some people also lose their phones on the perilous sea crossing or could choose to throw them overboard if they were worried about surveillance, using a new handset when they arrive, ending that line of surveillance.

And if any of the plans for data collection in countries outside of the EU involve on the ground equipment or teams, they would have to get approval of national intelligence agencies, often wary of westerners’ intentions in the area.

EU countries have expressed concern about the lack of control they have over the large number of refugees entering Europe and the dangerous routes they are taking and are looking for solutions.

More than a million migrants arrived in Europe by sea last year, with 3,771 people recorded dead or missing. This year has seen 80,000, and a further 403 people so far added to the total of those having died trying to reach European shores.

Following the Paris terrorist attacks on 13 November last year there have been fears that two of the terrorists might have entered Europe through routes used by refugees. This has increased the sense or urgency among EU states to identify terrorists who might reach Europe this way.

Experts say migrants already have sophisticated networks providing them with real-time information so they would be unlikely to subscribe to an app promoted by the EU. Photograph: Nikos Arvanitidis/EPA

This week Greece opened refugee registration centres on the most affected four islands, Lesbos, Samos, Kos and Chios.

At the meeting last month on Lesbos, the various IT companies showcased their latest ideas. Unisys said it had devised a “refugee management suite” which they said could provide pre-registration of asylum seekers. Its proposals included:

Controlling refugees before they reach Europe using phone apps and biometric data gathering;



Tracking people once they are inside Europe using new identity cards;



System of red flags and data analytics to highlight those with backgrounds which merit investigation.



At the moment EU states use Eurodac, a system of fingerprinting asylum seekers once they have arrived in Europe. The aim of the fingerprinting system is to prevent people from claiming asylum in more than one country.

De Schipper and Roland Heesen from Unisys said that this system was not designed for the large numbers of refugees and does not capture detailed data about their backgrounds. The company hopes to link up different databases to identify whether any refugee has any links with terrorism or other crimes.

“We want to produce a refugee card that gives them their own identity. If you give them a card they can get food and benefits ... One possibility could be to use a monetary mechanism to give access to additional services. If someone is not without means they could get – not a preferential treatment, that would be out of the question – but instead of going to a refugee camp they might go to a hotel,” said De Schipper.

Unisys said they already had the intellectual property rights to the software required and to implement such a system would simply be a matter of integrating different data into one system. “We have the engine and we have the wheels, we just need to put it all together to make a car that works,” said Heesen.

But some of the frontline organisations working with migrants questioned how such a system would work. Dr Maurice Stierl of WatchTheMed Alarm Phone, an organisation of activists that supports free movement of migrants, criticised the proposals. The organisation operates an emergency phone service for migrants whose boats get into trouble in various stretches of sea around Europe, contacting the nearest coastguards to alert them when they receive an SOS call. In the last 15 months they have received about 1,400 distress calls.

He said that Syrians in particular already have sophisticated networks providing them with real-time information so they would be unlikely to subscribe to an app promoted by the EU to track their movements both before and after they reach Europe.

Migrants use smartphones which have orientation facilities. WhatsApp, Viber, Skype, Twitter and Facebook all provide up-to-date information before they cross a stretch of sea. “We have a healthy scepticism about these proposals,” said Stierl. “European policymakers and border authorities are worried because they can’t stop migration so they are looking at technological solutions. This is a scary development. It’s a new form of surveillance.”

Rachel Robinson, policy officer for civil liberties advocacy group Liberty, said any attempt to use “behaviour analytics which treat past conduct as currency for food and shelter mark a new descent into the moral abyss. Shame on the EU for seeking out new ways to flout its legal and moral obligations to protect those fleeing extreme human rights abuses.”

A spokeswoman for Frontex said: “The meeting took place on 27 and 28 January. It was organised by us and other member states. We are looking at what technology is available to manage this issue and are developing advice to member states.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are committed to supporting our European partners in ensuring the full and proper management of the EU’s external border, tackling illegal migration and deterring people from risking their lives on perilous journeys.”

Other efforts to track asylum seekers have attracted controversy. Recently the Guardian revealed that some asylum seekers in Cardiff were required to wear brightly coloured wristbands to be eligible to receive food. Within hours of this being made public the Home Office subcontractor, Clearsprings Ready Homes, abandoned the practice and during subsequent evidence to the home affairs select committee apologised to asylum seekers for this policy.

• This article was amended on 22 February 2016 to correct the spelling of Rudolf De Schipper’s first name.