ROME, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- Italy and the United States have signed an agreement to share fingerprint databanks in order to track down suspected criminals and terrorists among migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, local media reported Friday.
Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti and Acting U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke signed the agreement on the sidelines of a Group of Seven (G7) meeting of interior ministers on the island of Ischia, according to Italian news agency ANSA.
The agenda at the Italy-chaired meeting of the seven industrialized nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Britain and the United States -- focused on preventing extremist propaganda and recruitment on the internet and combating foreign fighters or radicalized Europeans who joined the ranks of so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.
Foreign fighters are expected to try to return to Europe, where they could pose a threat to their EU home countries, as ISIS has been largely defeated in Syria and Iraq.
Also attending the summit were EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, EU Security Commissioner Julian King, and Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock.
Businessmen present at the gathering were Facebook Counter-terrorism Policy executive Brian Fishman, Google VP for Public Policy Nicklas Lundblad, Microsoft VP for EU Government Affairs John Frank, and Twitter Public Policy executive Nick Pickles.
Foreign fighters and young people are often radicalized and recruited on the internet, which is why executives from leading social media companies were invited to Ischia to discuss ways their companies could pitch in to fight extremism.
On Thursday, the Italian Interior Ministry announced a 34-year-old Algerian man was repatriated to his home country after being arrested for "instigation to commit acts of terrorism" on Facebook.
The man had been arrested in June this year, after Italy's anti-terrorism police reported him for praising jihadi attacks on Christians on his Facebook profile, according to the Interior Ministry.
Thursday's repatriation brings the total number of expulsions this year to 86. A total of 218 extremist sympathizers have been expelled from Italy since 2015, the ministry said.
