Background:

The vulnerability of applicants for international protection is a key component of the EU acquis on asylum, with both the Recast Asylum Procedures Directive (2013/32/EU) and the Recast Reception Conditions Directive (2013/33/EU) providing special provisions for vulnerable persons with regard to the procedure for international protection (i.e. special procedural guarantees) and reception (i.e. special reception needs), respectively. Hence, for Member States to be able to provide and guarantee these special provisions for vulnerable applicants, a vulnerability must be detected, identified, and recorded at an early stage in the international protection procedure.

The Slovak Republic (SK) plans to upgrade the Ministry of Interior's national internal information system, called MIGRA, which contains data on procedures, e.g. on residence, removal and international protection, with different access rights. As part of the upgrade, there is a plan to also collect data on the vulnerability of applicants for international protection. The aim is to ensure that information on vulnerabilities can be exchanged to the required extent between different departments of the Migration Office of the Ministry of Interior which is responsible for asylum procedures. In addition, the aim is to be able to generate various statistical reports, for example on the number of vulnerable applicants for international protection in the reporting period, by type of vulnerability, in line with the GDPR.

Respondents:

22 EMN Member and Observer Countries (including BE) provided a public answer to this ad hoc query.

Findings:

A preliminary analysis of the results of the ad hoc query shows that:

• Out of 22 responding countries, 16 (including BE) indicate collecting data on the vulnerability of applicants for international protection in their national internal information system(s). Most of them collect data that is mostly relevant for the reception of applicants and used for matching purposes.
   
• Out of the 16 countries collecting data, 14 countries report to be able to generate some form of statistical reports related to vulnerability. Most countries can only provide statistics on the number of applicants for international protection who belong to a certain vulnerability category. In most cases, the categories for which statistical reports are produced are very limited, e.g. only for unaccompanied minors (such as SI) and victims of trafficking (such as FI), because, apart from the basic data, categories of vulnerability are recorded as qualitative data. For example, there are no statistical reports detailing the specific needs that are identified in SE as their IT system allows for three categories (not belonging to a vulnerable group / vulnerable individual without special needs / vulnerable individual with special needs).

• Only a couple of countries include subcategories in their statistical reporting, including BE, where the imputed data include subcategories that are needs-based.

For further details, please read the compilation of answers attached above.