In 2020, as in many other areas, the COVID-19 pandemic had an effect on the overall usage of Eurodac, which
fell by around 30% compared to 2019. This was as a result of the reduction in border checks and the travel
restrictions imposed all over Europe.
In September 2020, the European Commission presented the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, a major policy
development which will pave the way for a profound evolution of Eurodac in the near future. The amended
proposal for a Regulation on the establishment of Eurodac1 was one of the legislative proposals presented in
the new Pact. The new Pact preserved the compromises reached on certain legislative proposals that were part
of the 2016 reform of the Common European Asylum System, and added new elements to ensure the balance
needed in a framework that brings together all aspects of asylum and migration policy. As soon as the proposal
for a Regulation on the establishment of Eurodac is adopted, eu-LISA will work in cooperation with Member
States to implement the changes in the Eurodac Central System.
In 2020, an important work stream was the preparation, including tests and data deletion, of the disconnection
of the United Kingdom from Eurodac. As per the legal requirement, this was carried out on 1 January 2021. The
United Kingdom was still a Eurodac user in 2020, as reflected in the statistics in this report. The disconnection
and related activities will impact the usage of Eurodac in 2021, in particular in the amount of fingerprint datasets
stored and the amount of data sets transmitted in the year.
Read the Full Report and/or the Factsheet.