The Malta police might soon have partial access to the EU’s database on asylum seekers – known as Eurodac – under proposals launched recently in Brussels.

Robus checks have been introduced in the proposal to safeguard the rights of people on the database

So far, law enforcement agencies across the EU do not have access to millions of fingerprints and other data on asylum seekers held in a central unit in Brussels. However, this is now set to change, although only for certain cases, where EU police and other agencies are investigating serious crime such as acts of terrorism.

Eurodac, established in 2003 as part of the EU’s Common Asylum System, obliges member states to send to Brussels the fingerprints of all immigrants seeking asylum. The systems cross-checks fingerprints to establish whether an asylum seeker had already made similar claims elsewhere in the EU

Through the new proposal, aimed at improving the overall efficiency of the system, national law enforcement authorities will, in very limited and specific circumstances, be allowed to make fingerprint checks against the Eurodac database to help prevent and fight the most serious crimes and terrorism.

Robust checks have been introduced in the proposal to safeguard the rights of people on the database.

Operational changes imposing member states with clearer deadlines for the transmission of data and to comply with data protection rules have also been proposed.

The proposal will now have to be approved by EU member states.

Last year, the Eurodac system handled data regarding 300,000 asylum applications, a 16.2 per cent increase on 2010. The peak was reached in 2001 when the EU received 425,000 asylum requests.