Technologies for Expulsion: the Use of the Eurodac Database by Switzerland

Biometric databases have become important instruments of migration control in Europe. Yet, little attention has been paid to the role of biometric technologies in implementing expulsions. As a tool for determining the countries responsible for processing asylum applications in Europe, Eurodac (European Dactylographic system) serves the implementation of the Dublin system. The database is extensively used by Switzerland not only for this purpose but also to ‘fight irregular migration’.

According to the Dublin III Regulation, an asylum seeker can only apply for asylum in one of the 32 European countries that are currently members of the Dublin System. The regulation’s main purpose is to prevent multiple asylum applications (“asylum shopping”); thus, it leads to numerous deportations of persons who applied for asylum in another European country than the responsible one. Although there are different types of evidence used for determining the country responsible for the examination of an asylum application, Dublin procedures heavily rely on the Eurodac database.

The Eurodac Database

Eurodac is the first EU Automated Fingerprint Identification System, which has been operational since 15 January 2003. While the European Commission is responsible for administrating the database, the operational management has been delegated to the European Agency for the operational management of large-scale IT systems in the area of freedom, security and justice, also called eu-LISA, since 2013.

Eurodac contains the fingerprints of asylum seekers and people that irregularly crossed the EU’s external borders, aged 14+. It is a hit/no hit system. In fact, fingerprints of asylum seekers are taken by the country in which they lodge an asylum application and then sent to the Eurodac central. A positive answer, i.e. the already existing storage of these fingerprints, is called hit. It points to the responsibility of another country to process the asylum application.

According to the eu-LISA annual report (2018), in 2017, 36% of 633,324 asylum applications processed via Eurodac were multiple applications; meaning that, in these cases, asylum seekers asked for asylum in more than one country. Their part has steadily increased since 2014. Moreover, 99,032 persons moved to another member state to introduce their asylum application after they had irregularly crossed external borders of a member state. Finally, 176,048 persons were living as irregular migrants in a member state after they had asked for asylum in at least another member country.

The Use of Eurodac in the Swiss Case

The Dublin System has largely benefited Switzerland. Since 1 January 2014, the Swiss federal authorities, along with the other Dublin states, have partially and provisionally been applying the Dublin III Regulation and the current version of the Eurodac Regulation. Later on, these texts were transposed into Swiss law, and these changes entered into force as of 1 July 2015.

According to eu-LISA (2018), Switzerland is 11th in the ranking of countries having introduced most fingerprints into Eurodac; it sent data of 164,334 persons by the end of 2017; 25,038 of which were included only during 2017. Switzerland also uses Eurodac as a tool for the ‘fight against irregular migration’. Among arrested irregular migrants in Switzerland in 2017, 13,739 of them had previously asked for asylum in another European country, according to the data stored in Eurodac.

Although Switzerland is a federal state, the implementation of the Dublin Regulation and the use of Eurodac is centralized. The State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) handles Dublin procedures, while the cantons have to cope with the presence of rejected asylum seekers and execute the related deportation orders issued by the federal authority. The SEM Dublin office is responsible for the contacts with the member states through the ‘DubliNet’ electronic communication network, in which Dublin requests about taking over the responsibility for asylum seekers and irregular migrants are exchanged. If a state accepts to take an asylum seeker back on the basis of a Eurodac hit or other evidence, a Dublin deportation order is issued by the SEM. Otherwise, the asylum application is processed by Switzerland.

Asylum seekers lodge their asylum applications in a Swiss federal processing center, where their fingerprints are taken and systematically compared with entries in national databases, Eurodac and the European Visa Information System (VIS). A Eurodac search is also launched in the case of foreigners arrested or controlled by the cantonal police; a hit obliges them to inform federal authorities. If the person has already applied for asylum in Switzerland in the past and was deported, their case is handled directly by the canton to which their decision had originally been attributed.

Concluding Remarks

The use of Eurodac is a core element of the Swiss asylum system and, to a lesser extent, of the ‘fight against irregular migration’. Without this database, the outcome of the Swiss asylum procedures and of its efforts to deport asylum seekers and irregular migrants would be definitely more limited. However, a Eurodac hit and the consequent Dublin deportation procedures do not necessarily imply successful removal from the country. Overall, our study has also shown that Eurodac, as well as the VIS, are powerful instruments of the europeanization of migration control and the deportation of foreigners in the Swiss case.

Ibrahim Soysüren is a senior researcher working on deportation of foreigners and use of technologies in migration processes from a comparative perspective. He has recently published the book “Expulsion des étrangers en France, en Suisse et en Turquie. Pour une sociologie comparative de l’expulsion des étrangers” (Neuchâtel: Alphil).

Mihaela Nedelcu is a titular professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Neuchâtel. She studies transnational processes and the impact of ICTs on migration and is a leader of the IP33 in phase II of the nccr – on the move.

This post is based on findings from the study “Institutional uses of European technological tools for identification and avoidance strategies by foreigners to be deported in France and in Switzerland. Towards a Europeanization of the deportation of undesirable foreigners?” (Swiss National Science Foundation Grant FN 10001A_166142/1, 2016-2019).

Reference:

– eu-LISA (2018) Annual report on the 2017 activities of the Eurodac central system, including its technical functioning and security pursuant to Article 40(1) of Regulation (EU) No 603/2013, Tallinn: eu-LISA.