OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN DATA PROTECTION SUPERVISOR on the proposal
for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the
recast of the ‘Eurodac” Regulation.
The proposal
for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the
establishment of ‘Eurodac’ for the comparison of fingerprints for the
effective application of Regulation (EC) No […/…] (establishing the criteria
and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an
application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States
by a third-country national or a stateless person) was sent by the Commission
to the EDPS for consultation on 3 December 2008. This consultation should be
explicitly mentioned in the preamble of the Regulation.
It is recalled
that the EDPS has contributed to this proposal at an earlier stage, and many
of the points he raised informally have been taken into account in the final
text of the Commission's Proposal.
His main
conclusion may be summarised as follows :
- the EDPS
supports the proposal and welcomes the supervision model proposed as
well as the role and tasks he has been entrusted with in the new system.
The model envisaged reflects the current practice which proved
efficient;
- the EDPS
notes that the proposal strives to consistency with other legal
instruments governing the establishment and/or use of other large-scale
IT systems;
- he welcomes
considerable attention devoted in the proposal to the respect of
fundamental rights, and in particular the protection of personal data.
As also mentioned in the opinion on the revision of the Dublin
Regulation, the EDPS considers this approach as an essential
prerequisite to the improvement of the asylum procedures in the European
Union.
The EDPS draws
attention to the following points:
- the need to
ensure full consistency between the EURODAC and Dublin Regulations;
- the need for
a better coordination and harmonization at EU level of the procedures
for fingerprinting whether they concern asylum seekers or any other
persons subject to the Eurodac procedure. He draws special attention to
the question of the age limits for fingerprinting, and in particular the
difficulties occurring in several Member States to determine the age of
young asylum seekers;
- the need for
clarification of the provisions regarding the rights of the data
subjects, and in particular he underlines that the national data
controllers are primarily responsible to ensure the application of these
rights.