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Date of publication in the EIoP: 21 Jul 2006
Keywords: New technologies, institutionalisation, asylum policy, immigration policy, Schengen, security/internal, Council of Ministers, joint decision making, unanimity, national interest, game theory, sociological institutionalism, political science
Abstract
This study accounts for the emergence of a supranational biometric control regime in Europe. The empirical focus lies on the institutionalization of Eurodac, an automated fingerprint identification system covering asylum seekers and "illegal" immigrants. Who promoted the idea of setting up an automated biometric system in the European Community? Which behavioral logics were underlying the negotiation of the Eurodac Regulations in the Justice and Home Affairs Council? And how did the European Commission get involved in policing the so-called "Area of Freedom, Security and Justice"?
1. Introduction
The Eurodac Regulations adopted by the Council of the European Union on December 11, 2000 and February 28, 2002, respectively (Council 2000a, 2002), provided the legal basis for the establishment of an automated European dactylographic system (hence the acronym Eurodac) in the European Community. Automated biometric identification systems like Eurodac allow for the instant and exact comparison of unique physiological features such as an individual's iris, face, or fingerprints for law enforcement purposes.
Eurodac represents the first application of biometric identification technology within a supranational political entity. For the time being, we do not know by which social mechanisms this development was brought about. Nor can we be sure of Eurodac's impact on the relationship between EU citizens and third country nationals, on the one hand, and supranational political institutions, on the other. In spite of the democratic and human rights relevance of this project, Eurodac has received only scant attention outside practitioners' circles. (The Eurodac-related secondary literature is accordingly limited; see Aus 2003, Brouwer 2002, and van der Ploeg 1999. For legal commentary from a practitioner's perspective, see inter alia Schmid 2003.) In order to ameliorate this situation, this paper addresses the following questions: How can we account for the institutionalization of biometric control procedures in the European Community? Which actors successfully promoted the idea of setting up an automated European dactylographic system? And what were the logics of action underlying the negotiation of the Eurodac Regulations both in the Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council of the European Union and...