Vernd — Lykilupplýsingar um umsækjendur um alþjóðlega vernd

Key monthly/weekly stats on international-protection (asylum) applicants to Iceland. Power BI dashboard published by Ríkislögreglustjóri (National Commissioner of Police) via the Ministry of Justice's mælaborð index at stjornarradid.is/gogn/maelabord/.

Architecture

Public /view?r=<base64> Power BI embed — same scrape pattern as landlaeknir. No auth, no token, no Playwright-drivable SPA: just point headless Chromium at the embed URL and intercept the Power BI data responses.

Field	Value
Tenant	509484a8-c0ff-4960-b5da-3bdb75e98460
Report key	a2a07353-0f55-40d2-b761-bab29aba67bc
Cluster	9
Embed URL	https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=<base64(json{k:report,t:tenant,c:9})>

The cluster number matters — it's embedded in the base64 payload on the official government page. Most landlaeknir dashboards use cluster 8; this one uses 9.

Usage

# Print embed URL + IDs for verification
uv run python scripts/vernd.py info

# Scrape Power BI query responses (~15s headless browser run)
uv run python scripts/vernd.py fetch

Output: data/raw/vernd/responses.json — list of raw Power BI semantic-query results, one per visual on the page.

What the dashboard publishes

Each Power BI "visual" corresponds to one query response. Captured shape (2026-04):

Visual	Row count	Dimensions	Measure
Yearly total	5	Dags stofnað hælisleit.Ár	count
Monthly trend	57	Ár × Mánuður_stutt	count
Weekly trend by gender	142	Ár × Vikunúmer × Kyn2	count
Age × gender	9	Aldursflokkun2 × Kyn2	count
By nationality	38	Hælisleitandi.Ríkisfang	count
Nationality × year	104	Ríkisfang × Ár	count
KPI cards	1 each	—	totals/averages

Data-model entities

Entity (Source.Entity)	Fields used	Meaning
Nafnaskrá	Kyn2, Aldursflokkun2	Applicant demographics
Hælisleitandi	Ríkisfang	Citizenship / country of origin
Dags stofnað hælisleit	Ár, Mánuður_stutt, Vikunúmer	Application-opened date
Dags beiðni	Ár	Request date

Values (sanity check, 2026-04-21 snapshot)

Applications-opened per year (from the yearly-trend visual):

Year	Count
2022	4,493
2023	4,159
2024	1,932
2025	1,712
2026 (YTD)	421

The 2022 peak + subsequent decline is consistent with the surge during the Ukraine-war influx and the 2023 policy tightening.

Decoding the Power BI "DSR" payload

Each captured response contains result.data.dsr.DS[*].PH[*].DM0 — a list of row objects with a C array holding values in the order declared by descriptor.Select. The first row carries a schema (S) that names each slot; subsequent rows omit the schema and reuse the column order. Numeric values are plain ints; categorical values are strings.

Minimal parser sketch:

import json
payload = json.loads(open("data/raw/vernd/responses.json").read_text())
for visual in payload:
    dm0 = visual["results"][0]["result"]["data"]["dsr"]["DS"][0]["PH"][0]["DM0"]
    # dm0[0]["S"] holds the column schema; each dm0[i]["C"] is a row tuple
    for row in dm0:
        print(row.get("C"))

Heads-up: sparse rows use the R key to indicate "repeat previous column value" and the C key may be absent when all columns repeat. Full decoding requires handling those two shorthands.

Caveats

1. No public CSV / API — the underlying immigration-case database is not published. The dashboard is the only open view.
2. Definitions. "Umsókn um alþjóðlega vernd" includes all applicants (Convention refugees, subsidiary protection, humanitarian). The dashboard does not break down by outcome.
3. Reporting lag. Latest weeks often under-count — applications logged late in the case-management system filter through over the following weeks. Don't compare the current-week count to prior weeks directly.
4. Ukraine influx. The 2022 and early 2023 numbers are dominated by Ukrainian arrivals under the temporary-protection regime. Trend comparisons pre-/post-2022 should flag this.
5. Cluster number stays at 9. Don't assume cluster 8 like most /view?r= embeds — it's in the payload for a reason.
6. Encoding. Power BI responses are UTF-8 throughout (nationality names, month-name strings like "Mánuður_stutt"). Write JSON with ensure_ascii=False and read with encoding="utf-8".

Attribution

"Byggir á upplýsingum frá Ríkislögreglustjóra."

Related

• landlaeknir — same /view?r= scrape pattern, 33 health dashboards
• vinnumalastofnun — related on labour-market side (work permits)
• Policy tracker at stjornarradid.is/verkefni/utlendingar/upplysingavefur-verndarmala (upplysingavefur_verndar in the mælaborð backlog) — narrative companion, no additional raw data.