The European Union’s central asylum database malfunctioned on the first day of the new Migration and Asylum Pact, Friday, June 12th.
Eurodac stores biometric data, but struggled with a system update on its first day. The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service admitted the database had not been fully operational even before the failure, affecting several EU member states.
Brussels mouthpiece Marcus Lammert tried to stay on message at the daily EU press briefing:
Any first day of a new system will have technical glitches. This is normal.
The information that I’m getting is that member states are gradually linking in and that it’s going rather well.
It became clear that several member states, including the Netherlands, found the database got off to a bad start, failing to collect biometric and identity data—including fingerprints, facial images, and copies of travel documents—so as to register migrants in what is supposed to be a revamped Eurodac system.
While technical issues could well be resolved, political objections to the EU Migration Pact remain, with Latvia and Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz opposition party in Hungary, among others, pushing back against the legislation.
