CCPR/C/121/D/2770/2016 which the person may subsequently be removed. The Committee has also indicated that the risk must be personal, and that there is a high threshold for providing substantial grounds to establish that a real risk of irreparable harm exists. 18 With regard to the author’s claim under article 24, the State party submits that it is incompatible ratione materiae with the Covenant and therefore inadmissible under article 3 of the Optional Protocol, as article 24 cannot be applied extraterritorially. 19 4.3 The State party further indicates that when applying the principle of country of first asylum, the Refugee Appeals Board requires, at a minimum, that the asylum seeker is protected against refoulement and that he or she is able to legally enter and take up lawful residence in the first country of asylum. According to the State party, such protection includes certain social and economic elements, as asylum seekers must be treated in accordance with basic human standards and their personal integrity must be protected. The core element of such protection is that the person(s) must enjoy personal safety, both upon entering and while staying in the country of first asylum. However, the State party considers that it is not possible to require that asylum seekers have the same social and living standards as nationals of the country. 4.4 Regarding the author’s claim that he entered the State party as an unaccompanied minor, the State party submits that the author entered its territory in possession of an identity card issued in the Syrian Arab Republic, from which it appears that he was born on 1 June 1995. It further refers to the findings of the Refugee Appeals Board of 30 May 2016, according to which the Greek authorities granted him refugee status from 12 June 2015 to 12 June 2018 and that a residence card was issued for him on 27 July 2015, as well as travel documents. The State party indicates that the Danish Immigration Service carries out an investigation to establish the identity, nationality and travel route of every asylum seeker, and that for that purpose it conducts an interview with him or her, with his or her consent, in order to review the correctness of the provided data, if deemed necessary, for example through an age-assessment test, a language-assessment test or a DNA test. In addition, before deciding whether to revise the data on the asylum seeker’s age, nationality, etc., the asylum seeker is consulted. The State party indicates that the Service interviewed the author on several occasions: (a) on 28 September 2015, he maintained that his date of birth was 1 June 1995, that he had been issued his identify card when he was 14 years old and that he had been called up for military service in 2013, when he was 18 years old; (b) on 29 March 2016, the author was interviewed again and he reported that he had a younger brother in Germany; (c) on 30 May 2016, following the author’s brief to the Board, he said that his real date of birth was 1 June 2000. When the author was interviewed by the Service, he stated that he had been advised not to communicate his real age to immigration authorities. During this interview, he presented a family book in which it appeared that he was the second child of the family, as well as a birth certificate showing that he was born on 1 June 2000.20 The State party recalls that the Board found that it was outside its powers to assess or revise the author’s birth date, as this was a question for the Service, appealable to the Danish Ministry of Immigration, Integration and Housing; (d) on 29 September 2016, the Ministry rejected the author’s request to modify his registered date of birth. The State party relies on the decision made by the Ministry with respect to the author’s age in its entirety and considers that it should be accepted as a fact that the author is an adult. 4.5 Regarding the risk that the author would face if deported to Greece, the State party notes that the author was granted refugee status in Greece on 12 June 2015 and that his residence permit is valid until 12 June 2018. It further submits that in accordance with the Committee’s jurisprudence, conditions in Greece are not of such nature that it would be contrary to article 7 of the Covenant to deport the author there. In this regard, the State party refers to X v. Denmark,21 which concerned a young Syrian male who, like the author, had been granted residence in Greece. The Committee concluded that the author’s claims under article 7 of the Covenant regarding the living conditions in Greece had not been sufficiently substantiated, and declared the case inadmissible under article 2 of the Optional 18 19 20 21 6 The State party refers to communication No. 2007/2010, J.J.M. v. Denmark, Views adopted on 26 March 2014, para. 9.2. The State party refers to communication No. 2378/2014, A.S.M. and R.A.H. v. Denmark, Views adopted on 7 July 2016, para. 7.5. See para. 2.8. See communication No. 2523/2015, Views adopted on 1 April 2015, para. 4.4.