Quellenangabe:
Identification of asylum seekers - EURODAC launched on 15 January 2003 (vom 08.02.2003),
URL: http://no-racism.net/article/136/,
besucht am 19.04.2024
[08. Feb 2003]
"The very first European Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) will be launched on 15 January. It is called EURODAC and will register the fingerprints of asylum seekers and certain categories of illegal immigrants arriving in any of the participating countries ."
Press release of the European Commission
Brussels, 14 January 2003
The very first European Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) will be launched on 15 January. It is called EURODAC and will register the fingerprints of asylum seekers and certain categories of illegal immigrants arriving in any of the participating countries . This will make it possible to apply the "Dublin Convention" on the criteria and mechanisms for determining which State is responsible for which asylum application, as well as the Community regulation which will replace it in the course of 2003.
EURODAC, a system for the comparison of fingerprints of asylum applicants and certain groups of illegal immigrants, will become operational on 15 January in the member states of the European Union (with the exception of Denmark, for the time being) and in the third countries bound by the EURODAC Regulation (Norway and Iceland).
The aim of this database is to assist in determining which state is responsible for considering an application for asylum according to the mechanism and criteria set up by the "Dublin Convention", to be replaced in the course of the year by a newly adopted European Community Regulation .
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.
Multiple asylum applications
Each participating State will promptly take the fingerprints of all fingers of every asylum seeker over the age of 14. The procedure for taking fingerprints will be 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 will be compared with fingerprint data transmitted by other participating states and already stored in the central database . If EURODAC reveals that those 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 any personal details such as the name of a person but 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. Moreover an independent joint supervisory authority will be set up in view of ensuring that the rights of data subjects are not violated.
A very complex system
EURODAC is the very 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 will operate the system on behalf of the participating States. The co-operation in this framework has been perfect and will be a good basis for further common large-scale IT projects, like the second generation of the Schengen Information System or the future European Visa Identification System.
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 participating state and the Central Unit. Every step has been taken to guarantee the security and protection of the data registered in EURODAC.
The Commission will submit to the European Parliament and the Council an annual report including information on the management and performance of EURODAC.
The following text is a documentation of a press release on EURODAC. It is published on www.no-racism.net for information.