Introduction

• Author: European Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (EU body or agency)
• Pages: 5-5

Eurodac  2019 Annual Report 5

1. Introduction

Eurodac, the European Dactyloscopy (fingerprints) database2, has been operational since 2003. It facilitates the

application of the Du blin Regulation and is one of the instruments used to implement the Common European

Asylum System (CEAS). As it enables the comparison of fingerprints, Eurodac assists in determining the country

responsible for the assessment of an asylum claim presented in one of the Member States3. Since July 2015,

Eurodac is also used for law enforcement purposes by Member State law enforcement authorities and Europol.

Since June 2013, eu-LISA is in charge of the operational management of the central system of Eurodac. This is

achieved in close cooperation with the Member States and the Commission, in particular through the eu-LISAs

Management Board (MB) and the Eurodac Advisory Group (AG). The AG met four times in 2019, to discuss inter

alia availability and performance of the system, approve changes and releases, as well as future evolutions.

This report covers the operati onal management activities carried out by eu-LISA during 2019, and presents an

overview of the statistical data on usage of the central system by the Member States. In accordance with the

legal provisions, the Eurodac Annual Report is submitted to the EU institutions, and published on the Agencys

website4. In addition, and complementary to the Eurodac annual report, eu-LISA also publishes the Annual

statistics of E urodac, and the annual List of d esignated authorities which have access to Eurodac for asylum

purposes.

1.1 Legal and policy developments

The year 2019 did not see any major legal developments as far as Eurodac was concerned. At the time of writing

this report, the legislative process is still ongoing to approve the proposal to recast the Eurodac Regulation,

presented by the Commission on 4 May 2016. The co-legislators have reached a provisional agreement on most

of the outstanding issues. However, the proposal to recast the Eurodac Regulation is part of the ov erall reform

package of the CEAS. The package consists of seven proposals, which the co-legislators sought to adopt as a

whole.

In a nutshell, the proposal to recast the Eurodac Regulation is aimed at the following: extending the scope of

Eurodac by lowering the age for fingerprinting from 14 to 6 years old, adding an obligation to store the biometric

data of persons found staying illegally on the territory of a Member State, extending the storage period of

biometric data of persons apprehended in relation to the irregular crossing of an external border, adding facial

images as a second biometric identifier and adding an obligation to store biographical data. The aim is to better

identify asylum seekers, to make it easier to identify and re-document illegally staying third-country nat ionals

and those who have entered the EU irregularly for the purpose of return and readmission, to discourage abuses,

and to prevent secondary movements within the EU.

The proposed recast will en able the implementation of changes set out in the ETIAS and intero perability

Regulations, and the integration of Eurodac in the future interoperable IT architecture of the JHA area.

However, to do this, Eurodac needs to be re-engineered as its data model is not aligned currently with other

large-scale IT systems. Since it does not include biographic data, effective comparis on with other systems

datasets cannot be performed. In addition, the syste ms architecture will have to evolve, by separating the

business layer from the underlying biometric matching services. The in-depth analyses that are required for the

re-engineering of Eurodac heavily rely on the adoption of the Eurodac recast proposal.

2 Regulation (EU) No  OJ L   hereafter referred to as the Eurodac Regulation 

3 Under the term Member States the current document refers to the Member Sta tes of the E uropean Union (EU) and Associated Countries that are bound

under Union law by Regulation (EU) No 603/2013 on 31 December 2019, if not specified otherwise. The Member States o f the EU connected to Eurodac on

31 December 2019 were Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland,

Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom .

Associated Countries connected to Eurodac were Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

4 https://www.eulisa.europa.eu/our-publications/reports