Better Measures to Detect Irregular Migration

"The changes resulting from the new Eurodac Regulation are important for migration management in Europe," says Minister of Justice and Public Security Astri Aas-Hansen (Ap). By having the member states in the Dublin cooperation register both fingerprints, facial images, and other relevant information about each asylum seeker, it becomes easier to determine which country is responsible for processing an asylum application, the minister continues.

Eurodac is a common database for the EU, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Iceland, and Norway, where fingerprints of persons seeking protection (asylum) or who have crossed the border into the EU/Schengen illegally are stored. The purpose is to compare fingerprints to identify asylum seekers and to determine which member state is responsible for processing the asylum application, in accordance with the Dublin Regulation. The police also have access to search the database under certain conditions in their work against serious criminal offences.

New in the Eurodac Regulation from 2024 is, among other things, that more categories of persons than before will be registered in the system, and that both fingerprints and facial images, in addition to several other types of information, will be stored. This will provide more precise and complete registrations, which can improve policy and regulatory development in the field, and thus help control and detect irregular migration.

The Eurodac Regulation is part of the so-called "Pact on Migration and Asylum," which includes ten legal acts adopted in the EU last year. Through agreements that Norway has with the EU (the Dublin Agreement and the Schengen Agreement), several of the legal acts become wholly or partially binding for Norway. Consultations related to the other legal acts that Norway is bound by are planned throughout the spring and autumn of 2025. There is a particularly close connection between the Eurodac Regulation and the Regulation on Asylum and Migration Management (AMMR Regulation).

The Eurodac Regulation from 2024 builds on the Eurodac II Regulation from 2013, which is currently part of Norwegian law.

The deadline for submitting input to the consultation is 2 July 2025.