1. Member States shall ensure the transmission of biometric data of an appropriate quality for the purposes of comparison by means of the computerised fingerprint and facial recognition system. As far as is necessary to ensure that the results of the comparison by Eurodac reach a very high level of accuracy, shall establish the appropriate quality of transmitted biometric data. Eurodac shall, as soon as possible, check the quality of the biometric data transmitted. If the biometric data do not lend themselves to comparison using the computerised fingerprint and facial recognition system, Eurodac shall inform the Member State concerned. That Member State shall then transmit biometric data of the appropriate quality using the same reference number as the previous set of biometric data.
2. Eurodac shall carry out comparisons in the order of arrival of requests. Each request shall be handled within 24 hours of its arrival. A Member State may, for reasons connected with national law, require particularly urgent comparisons to be carried out within one hour. Where such time limits cannot be respected due to circumstances which are outside the ’s responsibility, Eurodac shall process the request as a matter of priority as soon as those circumstances no longer prevail. In such cases, as far as is necessary for the efficient operation of Eurodac, shall establish criteria to ensure the priority handling of requests.
3. As far as is necessary for the efficient operation of Eurodac, shall establish the operational procedures for the processing of the data received and for transmitting the result of the comparison.
4. Where necessary, a fingerprint expert in the receiving Member State, as defined in accordance with its national rules and specifically trained in the types of fingerprint comparisons provided for in this Regulation, shall immediately check the result of the comparison of fingerprint data carried out pursuant to Article 27.
Where, following a comparison of both fingerprint and facial image data with data recorded in the computerised central database, Eurodac returns a fingerprint hit and a facial image hit, Member States may check the result of the comparison of the facial image data.
For the purposes laid down in Article 1(1), points (a), (b), (c) and (j), of this Regulation, final identification shall be made by the Member State of origin in cooperation with the other Member States concerned.
5. The result of the comparison of facial image data carried out pursuant to Article 27, where a hit based only on a facial image is received, and Article 28 shall be immediately checked and verified in the receiving Member State by an expert trained in accordance with national practice.
For the purposes laid down in Article 1(1), points (a), (b), (c) and (j), of this Regulation, final identification shall be made by the Member State of origin in cooperation with the other Member States concerned.
Information received from Eurodac relating to other data found to be unreliable shall be erased as soon as the unreliability of the data is established.
6. Where final identification in accordance with paragraphs 4 and 5 reveals that the result of the comparison received from Eurodac does not correspond to the biometric data sent for comparison, Member States shall immediately erase the result of the comparison and communicate that fact as soon as possible, and no later than three working days after the receipt of the result, to and inform it of the reference number of the Member State of origin and the reference number of the Member State that received the result.
Correlation table
| Regulation (EU) No 603/2013 | This Regulation |
| Article 25(1) to (5) | Article 38(1) to (4) and (6) |
| — | Article 38(5) |