working system of the Danish Immigration Service.171In principle, registration of an asylum-seeker’s nationality status can be corrected, and statelessness can be assessed throughout the refugee status determination procedure. However, the initial registration stands as long as it is unchallenged, and thus becomes a part of the authorities’ decisions. When an asylum-seeker is granted asylum in Denmark, the person is granted residency, and his or her identity card will be replaced by a residence card. That card indicates the refugee’s personal data, including information on possible statelessness. The Danish Immigration Service used to notify the refugee’s municipality of residence and provide the municipality with information necessary for the refugee’s CPR registration. Likewise, up to 1 October 2015, the Danish Immigration Service alerted the local municipalities about residence permits based on family reunification through their electronic registration system. However, since 1 October 2015, the Danish Immigration Service conducts the basic registration (including citizenship) in the Civil Registration System (the CPR) for persons who have been granted residence permit based on family reunification.172 Likewise, from February 2016, the basic registration (including citizenship) in CPR has been implemented for persons who have been granted a residence permit based on asylum. Section 48(e) is the only provision in the Aliens Act on registration of personal data. It is noteworthy that originally, the aim of the provision was exclusively to establish Danish responsibility for processing an asylum application.173 However, as a consequence of the increased focus on statelessness since 2011, the provision (Section 48(e)(1)) was amended in 2013 with a view to clarify which data the police have to register and that the police’s registration is based only on information from the asylum-seeker and the documentation the asylum-seeker has brought along. In addition, the amendment has transferred the competence to make the more thorough examination as to the asylum-seeker’s identity, nationality, travel route and other background information from the police to the Danish Immigration Service (Section 48(e)(3)).174 3.3.2.2 Standard and burden of proof Because a person seeking a determination of his or her statelessness is essentially asked to prove a negative, the determination itself presents significant challenges to applicants.175 Although in ordinary administrative proceedings an applicant normally bears the burden of proof, in a statelessness determination proceeding, “the burden of proof is in principle shared, in that both the applicant and examiner must cooperate to obtain evidence and to establish the facts.”176 Due to the very nature of statelessness, applicants will ordinarily have difficulties substantiating their claims of statelessness with documentary evidence. Such situations must be taken into account by determination authorities.177 The standard of proof must reflect the difficulties attendant to a determination of statelessness. Although the 1954 Convention does not require a particular standard of proof, UNHCR recommends that states adopt a standard providing that, where an individual’s statelessness is established to a “reasonable degree,” the individual shall be determined to be stateless.178 171 Section 48(e) of the Aliens Act on the registration of a person as “an applicant for asylum.” Registration of an applicant’s as an asylumseeker is different from registration of the applicant as stateless. Registration of an asylum-seeker is pursuant to Section 48(e) of the Aliens Act, whereas the registration of an individual as stateless is conducted pursuant to administrative reforms in an effort to comply with the 1954 Convention. 172 The concerned persons nevertheless have to contact the local municipality within five days from their entry into Denmark (or from the notification of the permit, if they already are staying in Denmark) in order to register their residence. 173 The Aliens Act, Consolidation Act No. 1021 of 19 September 2014. 174 See the amendment of Section 48(e), available at: https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=146542. 175 See UNHCR Handbook, para 88. 176 Ibid, para 89. 177 Ibid, para 90. 178 Ibid, para 91. UNHCR Representation for the Nordic and Baltic Countries 47