Asylum: Eurodac for the comparison fo fingerprints of applicants. Dublin Convention

Mrs. H. D'Ancona's (PSE, NL) report on Eurodac - a computerized system for the recognition of fingerprints of applicants for asylum - was adopter as amended. The Council made a proposal for setting up Eurodac in order to harmonize the Member States' asylum policies. Following the consultation procedure, the Commitee suggested that this proposal should take the form of a Convention, which would provide a better legal basis rather than a joint action. To ensure the respect of Human Rights, the Commitee suggested that the use of Eurodac must be subjected to very strict limits. In particular, it requested that the list of collectable data should not be extendable and that the recording of informations concerning the names of asylum applicants and their applications should be prohibited. Going further the proposal of the Council, the Commitee proposed to appoint a European data protector. Since the ratification of the Convention could require long procedures, at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, it could not yet been approved by a majority of Member States. In this case, the Convention should be replaced by a regulation and, at any event, the Commission must submit a draft replacement for it within five years of its entry into force. �