EURODAC, which stands for European Dactyloscopie, is the European fingerprint database for identifying asylum seekers and irregular border-crossers. According to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race Asylum applicants and irregular border-crossers over the age of 14 have their fingerprints taken as a matter of European Community law. These are then sent in digitally to a central unit at the European Commission, and automatically checked against other prints on the database. The European Commission (formally the Commission of the European Communities) is the executive branch of the European Union. 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. The Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System ( IAFIS) is a national Automated fingerprint identification and criminal history system maintained by the ^[1] All EU Member States currently participate in the scheme, plus three additional European countries: Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

See also

• Schengen Information System
• Frontex
• Steria
• Eurodoc (European federation of national organisations of young researchers)

References

1. ^ EURODAC “Information and communication" unit, Directorate-General Justice, Freedom and Security, B-1049 Brussels – August 2004

The Schengen Information System, also called “ SIS ” is a secure Governmental database system used by several European countries for the purpose of maintaining Frontex (from French: Frontières extérieures for ‘external borders’ legally European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Steria ( is a European provider of IT-driven business services focusing on key vertical market sectors public services finance telecommunications utilities and transport History In 2001 several members of national organisations for young researchers met at a conference in Uppsala organized by Sweden in the course of the

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