EURODAC - The EU Asylum Fingerprint Database
In
order to determine which EU/EEA Member State shall handle an asylum
application, a common fingerprint database, EURODAC, was established in 2003.
When people apply for asylum, no matter where in the EU/EEA, their fingerprints
are taken and transmitted to the EURODAC Central Unit, by which the
fingerprints are made accessible to competent authorities in Member States.
By this procedure and related data processing, the implementation of what is called 'the Dublin System', is served, the foundation of which is an EU Regulation, commonly referred to as the 'Dublin Regulation'.
Data of different groups of persons can be processed in EURODAC, e.g., of foreigners applying for asylum or persons apprehended crossing a border illegally on arrival from a third country without being turned back. It is also possible to check on foreigners who are unlawfully present on the territory of a Member State regardless of whether they have previously applied for asylum in another Member State. Besides fingerprints, some further data of the persons concerned are processed, such as the date of arrival in a Member State and the date when a person left.
Your rights as a data subject
As an individual, whose data are processed in EURODAC, you have the following rights:
- a) The right to access data and to correct or delete data
- b) The right to lodge a complaint to a data protection authority or a court
a) Your right to access data and to correct or delete data
Persons registered in EURODAC generally have the right to know whether their data have been entered into the database, as well as the right to access personal data about themselves. Data subjects also have the right to have factually incorrect data rectified and unlawfully registered data erased.
The National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police (NCIP) is responsible for the processing of personal data in EURODAC on behalf of Iceland. Below are the contact details for sending an access request to the NCIP:
Ríkislögreglustjóri/
National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police
Skúlagata
21
105
Reykjavík
Iceland
Att. SIRENE
office
Email: rls[at]rls.is
b) Your right to file a complaint to a data protection authority (DPA) or initiate court proceedings
The supervision of EURODAC is shared between the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the national DPAs. The EDPS is responsible for the supervision of the EURODAC Central Unit and the national DPAs for the supervision of the use of EURODAC in the Member States.
All information on complaint procedures with the EDPS can be found here.
If a request on access, correction or deletion is denied or not answered you can file a complaint to the Icelandic DPA. A complaint can be sent to the following e-mail address: postur[at]personuvernd.is
In addition, legal proceedings can be filed at the competent Icelandic court against decisions of a competent authority that rejected a request and against decisions of the DPA.