EU-systeem Eurodac voor registratie vingerafdrukken asielzoekers is een succes (en)

The first evaluation report on the functioning of EURODAC, the EU-wide fingerprint database for the comparison of the fingerprints of asylum seekers and illegal entrants to help establish which Member State is responsible for examining an asylum application, shows that EURODAC has made an excellent start. The evaluation report highlights very satisfactory results on the activities of the EURODAC Central Unit, in terms of efficiency, quality of service and cost-effectiveness. It is clear that in its first year EURODAC has been established as a front line asylum management tool for the EU.

The report reveals that in 17 287 cases (7% of the total number of cases), the same person had already made at least one asylum application in another country (multiple application).

Operational since 15 January 2003, EURODAC successfully processed in one year 246 902 fingerprints of asylum seekers, 7 857 fingerprints of people crossing the borders illegally and 16 814 fingerprints of people apprehended on the territory of a member state in an illegal situation.

The EURODAC central unit has been operating 24/24 hours and 7/7 days. No data protection problems have been raised in respect of EURODAC operations by the national data protection authorities responsible for monitoring the lawfulness of the processing of these personal data by Member States.

Background

Policy background

Since 15 January 2003, the fingerprints of anyone who applies for asylum in the European Union (except Denmark, for the time being) and in Norway, Iceland, are being stored in a database called EURODAC. EURODAC was created in the context of the development of an asylum policy common to all the Member States of the European Union. EURODAC aims at preventing duplication of asylum requests in the EU Member states.

The aim of this database is to assist in determining which state is responsible for considering an application for asylum according to the mechanisms and criteria set up by the so-called Dublin-II Regulation, the Council Regulation (EC) No 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national.

EURODAC identifies and therefore prevents the duplication of asylum requests in the EU Member states.

The "Dublin II" Regulation establishes a series of criteria which, in general, allocate responsibility for examining an asylum application to the Member State that is responsible for the entry or residence of the asylum-seeker . That Member State is responsible for examining the application according to its national law and is obliged to take back applicants who are irregularly in another Member State. It is therefore an important tool in the development of the Common European Asylum System called for by the European Council at its meeting in Tampere (Finland), in October 1999.

Technical background

EURODAC is the first common Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) within the European Union.

The European Commission set up EURODAC within the agreed, very short timeframe (two years after the adoption of the Regulation) and operates the system on behalf of the participating States. The co-operation in this framework has been total and thus forms a good basis for further common large-scale IT projects, such as the second generation of the Schengen Information System or the future European Visa Information System.

Under the EURODAC system, each participating State will promptly take the prints of all fingers of every asylum seeker over the age of 14. The procedure for taking fingerprints have been determined in accordance with the safeguards laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights and in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. These fingerprints are compared with fingerprint data transmitted by other participating States and already stored in the central database. If EURODAC reveals that the fingerprints have already been recorded, the asylum seeker will be sent back to the country where his/her fingerprints were originally recorded.

Access to this system is restricted to the sole purposes stated in the EURODAC Regulation. It does not contain details such as the name of a person because it relies only on biometric comparison, the safest and most accurate available identification method. Each participating state will ensure that the national supervisory authority on data protection will monitor independently the lawfulness of the processing of the data.

EURODAC consists of a Central Unit within the Commission equipped with a fully automated, computerized central database for comparing the fingerprints of asylum applicants and a system for electronic data transmission between each participating State and the Central Unit. Every step has been taken to guarantee the security and protection of the data registered in EURODAC.

The Central Unit of EURODAC began operations on 15 January 2003. The Council Regulation establishing the system requests the Commission to produce an evaluation report on the Central Unit's activities after one year of operations.

The total Community budget allocated for EURODAC is 11.6 million euro; the total expenditure on all externalised activities specific to EURODAC, after one year of operations, totals 7.5 million euro.