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(1) A number of substantive changes are to be made to Council Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000 of 11 December 2000 concerning the establishment of ‧Eurodac‧ for the comparison of fingerprints for the effective application of the Dublin Convention and to Council Regulation (EC) No 407/2002 of 28 February 2002 laying down certain rules to implement Regulation (EC) No 2725/2000 concerning the establishment of "Eurodac" for the comparison of fingerprints for the effective application of the Dublin Convention . In the interest of clarity, those Regulations should be recast.

(2) A common policy on asylum, including a Common European Asylum System, is a constituent part of the European Union's objective of progressively establishing an area of freedom, security and justice open to those who, forced by circumstances, seek international protection in the Union.

(3) The European Council of 4 November 2004 adopted The Hague Programme which set the objectives to be implemented in the area of freedom, security and justice in the period 2005-2010. The European Pact on Immigration and Asylum endorsed by the European Council of 15-16 October 2008 called for the completion of the establishment of a Common European Asylum System by creating a single procedure comprising common guarantees and a uniform status for refugees and for persons eligible for subsidiary protection.

(4) For the purposes of applying Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 establishing the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining an application for international protection lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national or a stateless person , it is necessary to establish the identity of applicants for international protection and of persons apprehended in connection with the unlawful crossing of the external borders of the Union. It is also desirable, in order effectively to apply Regulation (EU) No 604/2013, and in particular Article 18(1)(b) and (d) thereof, to allow each Member State to check whether a third-country national or stateless person found illegally staying on its territory has applied for international protection in another Member State.

(5) Fingerprints constitute an important element in establishing the exact identity of such persons. It is necessary to set up a system for the comparison of their fingerprint data.

(6) To that end, it is necessary to set up a system known as ‧Eurodac‧, consisting of a Central System, which will operate a computerised central database of fingerprint data, as well as of the electronic means of transmission between the Member States and the Central System, hereinafter the "Communication Infrastructure".

(7) The Hague Programme called for the improvement of access to existing data filing systems in the Union. In addition, The Stockholm Programme called for well targeted data collection and a development of information exchange and its tools that is driven by law enforcement needs.

(8) It is essential in the fight against terrorist offences and other serious criminal offences for the law enforcement authorities to have the fullest and most up-to-date information if they are to perform their tasks. The information contained in Eurodac is necessary for the purposes of the prevention, detection or investigation of terrorist offences as referred to in Council Framework Decision 2002/475/JHA of 13 June 2002 on combating terrorism or of other serious criminal offences as referred to in Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA of 13 June 2002 on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States . Therefore, the data in Eurodac should be available, subject to the conditions set out in this Regulation, for comparison by the designated authorities of Member States and the European Police Office (Europol).

(9) The powers granted to law enforcement authorities to access Eurodac should be without prejudice to the right of an applicant for international protection to have his or her application processed in due course in accordance with the relevant law. Furthermore, any subsequent follow-up after obtaining a ‧hit‧ from Eurodac should also be without prejudice to that right.

(10) The Commission outlines in its Communication to the Council and the European Parliament of 24 November 2005 on improved effectiveness, enhanced interoperability and synergies among European databases in the area of Justice and Home Affairs that authorities responsible for internal security could have access to Eurodac in well defined cases, when there is a substantiated suspicion that the perpetrator of a terrorist or other serious criminal offence has applied for international protection. In that Communication the Commission also found that the proportionality principle requires that Eurodac be queried for such purposes only if there is an overriding public security concern, that is, if the act committed by the criminal or terrorist to be identified is so reprehensible that it justifies querying a database that registers persons with a clean criminal record, and it concluded that the threshold for authorities responsible for internal security to query Eurodac must therefore always be significantly higher than the threshold for querying criminal databases.

(11) Moreover, Europol plays a key role with respect to cooperation between Member States' authorities in the field of cross-border crime investigation in supporting Union-wide crime prevention, analyses and investigation. Consequently, Europol should also have access to Eurodac within the framework of its tasks and in accordance with Council Decision 2009/371/JHA of 6 April 2009 establishing the European Police Office (Europol) .

(12) Requests for comparison of Eurodac data by Europol should be allowed only in specific cases, under specific circumstances and under strict conditions.

(13) Since Eurodac was originally established to facilitate the application of the Dublin Convention, access to Eurodac for the purposes of preventing, detecting or investigating terrorist offences or other serious criminal offences constitutes a change of the original purpose of Eurodac, which interferes with the fundamental right to respect for the private life of individuals whose personal data are processed in Eurodac. Any such interference must be in accordance with the law, which must be formulated with sufficient precision to allow individuals to adjust their conduct and it must protect individuals against arbitrariness and indicate with sufficient clarity the scope of discretion conferred on the competent authorities and the manner of its exercise. Any interference must be necessary in a democratic society to protect a legitimate and proportionate interest and proportionate to the legitimate objective it aims to achieve.

(14) Even though the original purpose of the establishment of Eurodac did not require the facility of requesting comparisons of data with the database on the basis of a latent fingerprint, which is the dactyloscopic trace which may be found at a crime scene, such a facility is fundamental in the field of police cooperation. The possibility to compare a latent fingerprint with the fingerprint data which is stored in Eurodac in cases where there are reasonable grounds for believing that the perpetrator or victim may fall under one of the categories covered by this Regulation will provide the designated authorities of the Member States with a very valuable tool in preventing, detecting or investigating terrorist offences or other serious criminal offences, when for example the only evidence available at a crime scene are latent fingerprints.