Eurodac facilitates the application of the Dublin III Regulation which sets out the process for determining the Member State responsible for processing an asylum application. The Danish Data Protection Agency is responsible for monitoring the lawful processing of personal data carried out by Danish authorities who access data in Eurodac.
The collected data
The fingerprints of all asylum applicants, if they are at least 14 years of age, are collected as part of the ordinary procedure for seeking asylum. The fingerprints are transferred in an electronic format to a central unit in the European Commission, where the fingerprints are automatically compared with the existing fingerprints in the database. This procedure allows the authorities to assess whether an asylum seeker has already entered the EU without the necessary papers, and to see if the asylum seeker has already applied for asylum in another Member State.
The fingerprints are exclusively processed with the purpose to support and advance the asylum procedure. The system ensures that refugees are sent directly to the Member State responsible for processing their application. This also prevents illegal refugees from “shopping” in a new Member State after their application has been denied in a Member State.
The collected data recorded in Eurodac include:
- Fingerprint data;
- Member State of origin, place and date of the application for international protection;
- Sex;
- Reference number used by the Member State of origin;
- Date on which the fingerprints were taken;
- Date on which the data were transmitted to the Central System;
- Operator user ID;
Additional data may be recorded in specific cases, where necessary according to the Eurodac Regulation.
The collected data may be stored for a maximum of 10 years after which the data will be automatically erased from Eurodac. If the data relates to a person who has acquired citizenship in a Member State, the data shall be erased from Eurodac without delay.
Your rights
If you are registered in Eurodac, you have certain rights. You generally have the right to know whether data about you has been entered in Eurodac, as well as the right to access to your own personal data. You also have the right to have factually incorrect data corrected and you can request erasure of unlawfully registered data.
If you wish to exercise any of the mentioned rights as registered in Eurodac, please contact the Danish Immigration Service. You find their contact information here.
Supervision
The Danish Data Protection Agency is responsible for monitoring the lawfulness of the Danish authorities’ processing of personal data in compliance with the Eurodac regulation, including the transmission of data to the central system. This supervisory role includes carrying out inspections and handling complaints from data subjects.
Complaints
If you are dissatisfied with a decision made by the Danish Immigration Service concerning your request to access, rectification or erasure of data about you in Eurodac, you can submit a complaint to the Danish Data Protection Agency. You also have the possibility to search effective remedy by submitting a case to the Danish courts against the authority responsible for the decision.
If you wish to submit a complaint to the Danish Data Protection Agency, please provide the following information:
- A description of the nature of your complaint
- A copy of the decision or response that you received from the Danish Immigration Service
- Any other material that you think is relevant to your complaint
You can access our complaint form.
If you are dissatisfied with the decision from the Danish Data Protection Agency decision you may bring the matter before the Danish courts.
More information
You can read more about Eurodac on the following websites:
Relevant legislation