European Dactyloscopy (Eurodac) is the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

(EU)

fingerprint A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfac ...

database for identifying

asylum seekers An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country and applies for asylum (i.e., international protection) in that other country. An asylum seeker is an immigrant who has been forcibly displaced and mi ...

and irregular border-crossers. After the European Parliament approved the last EURODAC reform poposed by far-right party Vox (December 2022), asylum applicants and irregular border-crossers over the age of 6 have their fingerprints, pictures, and other biometric data taken as a matter of

EU law European Union law is a system of rules operating within the member states of the European Union (EU). Since the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community following World War II, the EU has developed the aim to "promote peace, its val ...

, which discriminatorily considers biometric data as a "special category of data" just in the case of EU citizens. These are then sent in digitally to a central unit at the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

, and automatically checked against other prints on the database. This enables authorities to determine whether asylum seekers have already applied for asylum in another EU member state or have illegally transited through another EU member state ("principle of first contact"). The Automated Fingerprint Identification System is the first of its kind on the European Union level and has been operating since 15 January 2003.EURODAC
"Information and communication" unit, Directorate-General Justice, Freedom and Security, B-1049 Brussels – August 2004 All EU member states currently participate in the scheme, plus three additional European countries: Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

References

Biometric databases European Union law Fingerprints Government databases of the European Union {{EU-law-stub

See also

References