Federal office for Migration and Refugees

Unit 31G, Statistics and Data Analysis Unit 

Frankenstrasse 210, 90461 Nuremberg, Germany

This metadata information is provided by the German authorities of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees to ensure compliance with the requirements of Article 4.4 (Dublin statistics) of the Regulation(EC) 862/2007 on Migration and International Protection as amended by the Regulation (EU) 2020/851.

As required by Article 9 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007, Member States must report to Eurostat on the data sources used, the reasons for the selection of these sources and the effects of the selected data on the quality of the statistics. Member States shall provide Eurostat with all the information necessary to evaluate the quality, comparability and completeness of the statistical information.

The reference document used for assessing the compliance of the concepts and definitions in this metadata file is the document Dublin statistics - Eurostat Technical guidelines to Dublin statistics (see Annex).

Dublin statistics contain information based on Article 4.4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 with reference to:

- The number of requests for taking back or taking charge of an asylum seeker of a third-country national.
- The decisions taken in response to the requests for taking back or taking charge.
- The numbers of transfers to which the decisions taken in response to the requests for taking back or taking charge lead.

See below.

 Migration and international protection – Dublin statistics

The official national Dublin statistics includes the requests to take back and to take charge of an asylum applicant by the Member States (Partner) to the declaring Member State (Geo) (resp. by the declaring Member State (Geo) to the Member States (Partner)) and the corresponding answers as well as the number of transfers.

The text of Art.4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 on Migration and international protection refers in general to statistics based on the number of persons and not on the number of applications. However, the article describing the 'Dublin' statistics (Art.4.4) refers to statistics based on the number of requests. Commission services recommend that Art.4.4 (more precisely 4.4.a, 4.4.c and 4.4.d) is interpreted as referring to the number of persons concerned by each request, decision and transfer.

Third country nationals submitting an application of asylum under the Dublin Regulation.

Germany.

Data on Dublin statistics is collected since 2014.

Not applicable.

Number of Persons (number of persons for a requests, decisions, transfers, etc.).

2022 Calendar year.

The compilation of Dublin statistics is based on Article 4.4 of Regulation (EC) 862/2007 of 11 July 2007 which depicts in details the data provisions Member States are bound to supply Eurostat with.

Not applicable.

See below.

Not applicable.

The individual details collected are kept secret according to § 16 Federal Statistics Act. Only in exceptionally expressly regulated cases may individual details be transmitted. The duty of secrecy also applies to persons who are the recipients of individual details.

Individual decision when a request for access is received. See 7.1.2 for further details.

See 7.1.2 for further details.

Not applicable.

Monthly and annually.

Not fixed.

User access allowed when data is published.

The Federal Office publishes data updated on a monthly basis concerning transfer requests that have been filed in the Dublin Procedure.

As part of a monthly press release, the respective asylum business statistics (which includes the German Dublin statistics) of the previous month are published on the homepage of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (http://www.bamf.de).

The results of the statistics are published in various publications. They are offered both in print and online in electronic form. The publications on asylum business statistics can be downloaded from the homepage of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (https://www.bamf.de/DE/Themen/Statistik/statistik-node.html).

https://www.bamf.de/SharedDocs/Anlagen/DE/Statistik/BundesamtinZahlen/bundesamt-in-zahlen-2021.html

the publication for report year 2022 will be published soon

Only for internal use.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable/internal procedure.

Not applicable/internal procedure.

100%

Not applicable/internal procedure.

In the process of statistics creation, a variety of measures are taken to ensure the quality of the data. If necessary, quality assurance measures will be adapted and complemented by standardized methods of quality assessment and assurance. In order to ensure uniform and high-quality application and maintenance of the Dublin statistics, regular meetings with internal organizational units and coordination with the Federal Ministry of the Interior are held.
The sub-working group meeting "Methods and Quality" on the principles of quality assurance at the Federal Statistical Office also takes place regularly (at least once a year).

Asylum and Dublin statistics in Germany are mainly based on administrative sources. Germany is following the requirements of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 and the quality of the data may be assessed as very good.

• Good quality (extensive quality) - all quality requirements are met according to the standard quality criteria and in line with the Technical Guidelines for the data collection of Dublin statistics (Annex).
• Sufficient quality (acceptable quality) - minimum quality requirements are met: minor issues exist which need to be improved.
• Poor quality (inadequate quality) - the data do not meet the minimum quality requirements: important/many issues exist which affect the quality of the data and which need to be solved.

The statistics collected under Regulation (EC) 862/2007 are used by a wide range of usersʼ at national, European and International level to cover various usersʼ needs.

The asylum (and Dublin) business statistics provides important data on asylum-specific topics. It serves as a basis for decision making on socio-political, economic and political matters at national and international level. It shows correlations, allows conclusions to be drawn on various facts and serves as a control instrument for decisions already taken.

Users of Dublin statistics: In addition to the German Federal Parliament (Bundestag), currently the main users of the asylum business statistics are federal and state ministries, in particular the Federal Ministry of the Interior as well as other national and international institutions and organizations, research and education institutions, the media and the general public.

Unmet user needs (on statistics) and reasons why these needs cannot be satisfied (at national and international level): All user needs on Dublin statistics are covered by Germany.

The interests of the users are taken into account in different ways. The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees is in constant contact with users of asylum and Dublin statistics, in particular via the information service to other authorities, departments, institutes and the public.

See below.

100%

Completeness is the extent to which all requested Dublin statistics are provided to Eurostat, according to the data provisions foreseen by Articles 4.4. of Regulation (EC) 862/2007 (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2020/851) and by the Technical Guidelines for Dublin statistics (Annex).

• Complete - The statistics are complete: the dataset and all requested breakdowns are available, as foreseen by Regulation (EC) 862/2007 (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2020/851) and the Technical Guidelines for the data collection of Dublin statistics (Annex)
• Incomplete - The statistics are incomplete: the dataset is available but some of the requested breakdowns are not available, as foreseen by Regulation (EC) 862/2007 (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2020/851) and the Technical Guidelines for the data collection of Dublin statistics (Annex)
• Not available - The statistics are not available: the dataset is not available, that is all the requested breakdowns are missing, as foreseen by Regulation (EC) 862/2007 (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2020/851) and the Technical Guidelines for the data collection of Dublin statistics (Annex)
• Not applicable - The statistics are Not applicable: the concept/process is not used or it does not exist in the country

The overall accuracy of the German Dublin statistics can be assessed as high.

Accuracy is the closeness of the data to the exact or true values that the statistics were intended to measure. Reliability is the closeness of the initial provided value to the subsequent (revised) value.

Assessment of the accuracy of the national Dublin statistics, at dataset level

• High = 100 % accuracy. The reported statistics measure accurately the target population, as foreseen by Regulation (EC) 862/2007 (as amended by Regulation (EU) 2020/851) and as defined in the Technical Guidelines for Dublin statistics (Annex)
• Good = 95 - 99 % accuracy. The reported statistics do not cover accurately the target population and a small part of the targeted population is missing, or a small part of non-targeted (erroneous) population is included in the reported statistics; the bias/error in the reported statistics is expected to be small
• Low = 80 - 94 % accuracy. The reported statistics do not cover accurately the target population and a large part of the targeted population is missing, or a large part of non-targeted (erroneous) population is included in the reported statistics; the bias/error in the reported statistics is expected to be large
• Very low = less than 80 % accuracy. The reported statistics do not cover accurately the target population and a very large part of the targeted population is missing, or a very large part of non-targeted (erroneous) population is included in the reported statistics; the bias/error in the reported statistics is expected to be very large

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

See below.

See below.

See the file ‘Proportion of units (persons) reported in the statistics that do not belong to the target populationʼ in annex.

Not applicable.

See concept 13.3.4 Processing Error.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

There are no processing errors in the German Dublin statistics.

Not applicable.

See below concepts 14.1.1 and 14.1.2.

- Number of days (on average) after the end of the reference period at which the country is able to report the first/preliminary data, at the earliest : 90 days

- Reasons for possible long production of the first/preliminary data and plans to improve the situation : quality assurance, data release.

- Number of days (on average) after the end of the reference period at which the country is able to report the final data, at the earliest : 90 days

- Reasons for possible long production of the final data and plans to improve the situation : quality assurance, data release.

The punctuality of the data is overall very good.

The punctuality of delivery and publication of the German Dublin statistic is overall very good.

See below.

Not applicable.

Assessment of possible sources of lack of comparability between countries, due to discrepancies from Eurostat concepts, definitions or due to differences in methods.

The data of the German Dublin statistics is comparable until the year 2014.

The data of the German Dublin statistics is comparable until the year 2014.

Not applicable.

Monthly and quarterly figures are not summable. Coherence between sub annual and annual statistics is only given to a limited extent.

Not applicable.

The asylum business (and Dublin) statistics is internally coherent.

Regular statistical reporting and revising to EDAMIS estimated to 30 working days per year. This does not include time to implement changes in guidelines in regular reporting.

Metadata questionnaire estimated to 10 working days involving at least 3 workers.

Data is revised continuously during the year and made final at the end of the year.

The asylum business (and Dublin) statistics contain the cumulative statistics in addition to the individual monthly statistics. Because of subsequent changes, an addition of the individual months to an annual value is not possible.

Subsequent changes.

See above.

The size of revision gives an idea of the stability of the data while direction is important to understand whether preliminary data tend to overestimate or underestimate the real target population.

Administrative data.

Monthly, quarterly and annually.

The asylum statistics are secondary statistics and are based on the duty of cooperation of the asylum seeker - persons covered by Dublin regulations. It is a full survey.

By default, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees records administrative data on all asylum seekers in the asylum application.

The collected data of the original database Maris are transferred to the data warehouse overnight in the form of statistic-relevant data records. Each data record is clearly identifiable via the person number already assigned in advance. Automated report generation takes place at each change of month.

The data records integrated into the data warehouse are prepared through extraction and compaction by means of specific query parameters.
The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees carries out extensive plausibility checks for the data included in its Dublin statistics. In addition, the data is subjected to a double-fall test. The Dublin business statistics is a full survey at the current time. An extrapolation of the results is therefore not necessary.

Description of the national workflow for checking and validating the source and output data and how the results of these validations are monitored and used:
The statistics are carried out annually as a complete survey on the basis of an electronic file system. Consequently, sample-related errors are excluded. The input data is continuously validated during the process and subjected to a plausibility check. Errors due to incorrect and incorrect information in the input data can not be ruled out. As a result, the results of the Dublin business statistics are generally of high significance, quality and validity.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The asylum business (and Dublin) statistics do not contain any subsequent data cleansing or the use of other analysis methods.

Not applicable.