Database on Lost Documents
On October 1st, 2005, the foreigners law was changed without much public attention adding an important detail for foreigners. Many persons “lost” their passports when wanting to enter Germany as an asylum seeker or noticed too late that their permit expired. These persons wanted to have some kind of hindrance to show their identity or have an excuse that their permit had expired “unnoticed”. This has now been curbed to some degree. The change in the law has introduced a database collecting information on found documents for identification from foreign offices and is maintained by the Federal Administration Office (Bundesverwaltungsamt) in Cologne.
Whenever an office receives possession of a document like a foreign passport or driver’s license it will forward this document to the Federal Administration Office after seven days. These 7 days give time for the individual to report his/her loss or the office to find a domestic address of that person. If the office thinks that it belongs to a crime, then this paper will be forwarded to the police.
What will this office do with the paper? It will hand it back to the Embassy of the issuing country and save the details of this document. What will these details be? These details will answer the following questions: Where and when was the document found? What kind of document was it? Who issued it, when, and where?
Bank Customers responsible for Lost EC-Card