The aim of the Eurodac database is to establish a system for comparing fingerprints of asylum seekers and certain categories of illegal immigrants. It was created to facilitate the implementation of the Dublin II Regulation, which allows to identify which country of the European Union is responsible for examining an asylum application.

The Eurodac database was created in accordance with the Dublin Treaty, by Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000 establishing ‘Eurodac’ (and concluded by Regulation (EC) No 407/2002) on the comparison of fingerprints for the effective implementation of the Dublin Convention, in order to collect fingerprints of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants in the European Union, with a view to identifying asylum seekers more easily, in the asylum examination procedure. However, these legal texts have been revised and supplemented by Regulation (EU) No 603/2013 establishing ‘Eurodac’ for fingerprint comparison, allowing data to be compared in addition for law enforcement purposes. The Regulation entered into force on 20 July 2015.

The system has been in operation since 2003 and has been used by the 28 Member States as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

To manage the technical aspects of large-scale information systems, such as SIS II, VIS and Eurodac, the European Agency for the Operational Management of Large Information Systems (eu-LISA) has been set up. The Agency’s main task is to keep IT systems under its responsibility 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, ensuring continuous data exchange between national authorities. The Agency is also responsible for adopting and implementing security measures, organizing the training of IT experts on the systems they manage, issuing statistics and monitoring research activities. The Agency must maintain full separation of data in the three systems and ensure that data security and data protection requirements are fully met.