Council Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000, as a Regulation, is directly applicable in all Member States, with the exception of Denmark. The Regulation establishes a system, called Eurodac, for the collation and comparison of fingerprints of asylum applicants and illegal aliens. It establishes a centralised database of fingerprint data. The stated aim of the Eurodac system is to assist in determining which Member State is to be responsible pursuant to the Dublin Convention (and now Regulation (EC) No 343/2003) for examining an asylum application.
In Ireland, the Data Protection (Amendment) Act 2003 amended Section 1 of the Data Protection Act 1988 to provide that the lawfulness of the processing of personal data under Eurodac shall be monitored by the Data Information Commissioner.
