Italian Ministry of Interior

Department of Civil Liberties and Immigration, Central Directorate for Civil Services and Immigration, Dublin Unit

Piazza del Viminale, 1 - 00184 ROME - ITALY

This metadata information is provided by the authorities of Italy 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).

For outgoing requests, the Police headquarters or border police, after the registration of the asylum claim, verify the necessity to apply the Dublin procedure and register the person in the data base named "Vestanet" and, if the case, in the database named "Dublinet". All the information about the Dublin procedure is registered in the Dublin database, and the procedure is followed by the Dublin Unit until the transfer to another Member State responsible for the asylum procedure. In both databases, after the transfer the procedure is closed.

For Incoming requests, the first registration is done by the Dublin Unit in the "Dublin" database. In case of acceptance and after the transfer to Italy the person is also registered in Dublinet (only if the person must follow the asylum procedure, otherwise, in case he/she wants to withdrawn the asylum claim, he/she will be registered for the voluntary return in the "RVA" database).

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 or a third-country national.
• The provisions on which the requests for taking back or taking charge are based.
• The decisions taken in response to the requests for taking back or taking charge.
• The number of unilateral decisions taken by Member States to examine the application of an asylum seeker
• The numbers of transfers to which the decisions taken in response to the requests for taking back or taking charge lead.
• The number of requests for information and responses on such requests.

See below.

Migration and international protection – Dublin statistics

See below.

The text of Art.4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 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. Italy is in line with this definition.

Third country nationals, defined as "any person who is not a citizen of the Union within the meaning of Article 17 (1) of the Treaty, including stateless persons" (Art 2.1 (i) of the Regulation), applying for asylum at the border or in the territory. Number of persons concerned by each request, decision and transfer.

Italy.

Regulation (EC) 862/2007 applies to Dublin statistics collected since 2008.

Not applicable.

Number (number of requests, number of decisions, number of 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 Italy is bound to supply Eurostat with.

Not applicable.

Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics (recital 24 and Article 20(4)) of 11 March 2009 (OJ L 87, p. 164), stipulates the need to establish common principles and guidelines ensuring the confidentiality of data used for the production of European statistics and the access to those confidential data with due account for technical developments and the requirements of users in a democratic society.

No national policy.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Application of GDPRS.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

In line with the Community legal framework and the European Statistics Code of Practice Eurostat disseminates European statistics on Eurostat's website respecting professional independence and in an objective, professional and transparent manner in which all users are treated equitably. The detailed arrangements are governed by the Eurostat protocol on impartial access to Eurostat data for users.

For the dissemination in Italy, not fixed.

Although data periodicity is annual, data is updated on a continuous basis following any new incoming data input (first or revised data). Eurostat statistics are disseminated annualy. The frequency of data transmission to Eurostat is annual and the national dissemination is not available

Data on Dublin statistics are used in the frame of the annual Release made by the Italian Ministry of Interior.

This Releases can be found under this portal: Annuario delle Statistiche Ufficiali del Ministero dell'Interno - Edizione 2020 - Ufficio centrale di statistica

No Italian publications.

No Italian database online is available.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Please see the annex "Technical Guidelines on Dublin statistics".

Please refer as well to Article 4.4 of the Regulation (EC) No 862/2007.

Not applicable.

Not available.

The quality of data in both Dublinet and Vestanet databases are assured by the IT agency in charge of data quality. 

Not available.

• 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 users at national, European and International level to cover various usersʼ needs.

Users of Dublin statistics :

• national authorities (Ministries of Interior, Ministries of Justice, Migration agencies) who use Dublin and Asylum data to monitor or project the development of their national asylum procedures
• the European Migration Network (EMN) which uses the data as a basis for its annual EU- and national-level statistical and analytical reports
• researchers and students conducting analysis and research in the field of asylum
• journalists and international organisations in the area of asylum and migration

Unmet user needs (on statistics) and reasons why these needs cannot be satisfied (at national and international level) : At present all statistical user needs are met.

Italy does not conduct user satisfaction surveys per se. Instead the users satisfaction is monitored on a constant way through informal and formal contacts and communications with users and through requests and comments received by users.

See below.

96% (some double counting and some missing data, some errors in database data registration).

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 (Annex1)
• 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 (Annex1)
• Not applicable - The statistics are Not applicable: the concept/process is not used or it does not exist in the country

Overall accuracy of the Dublin Statistics is about 99%.

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.

No over-coverage (rate = 0%)

Not applicable.

See concept 13.3.4 Processing Error.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not available.

Not applicable.

Data is collected on annual basis (calendar year) and must be transmitted by Italy not later than 3 months after the end of the reference period.

- 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 : 

Normally on time. For some past years Italy was not able to send data on time due to change of Dublin regulation and necessity to up to date the system.

Normally Italy do not send preliminary data but only consolidated data.

- Reasons for possible long production of the first/preliminary data and plans to improve the situation : 

Italy is updating the databases used to store the data. This could lead to some delays in the production of statistics.

- 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 : 

Normally on time. For some past years Italy was not able to send data on time due to change of Dublin regulation and necessity to up to date the system.

Normally Italy do not send a revision of the data.

- Reasons for possible long production of the final data and plans to improve the situation : 

Italy is updating the databases used to store the data. This could lead to some delays in the production of final results.

90%

Not applicable.

See below.

No asymmetry.

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

Perfect comparabilty over time.

2013-2022.

Asylum statistics collected under Article 4 of the Regulation (EC) 862/2007 are based on persons, while Dublin statistics may refer to requests in a few cases.

No sub-annual statistics.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not available.

Not available.

Not available.

Discovery of a mistake, change of articles for acceptance/refusal, add new born child.

See below.

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.

Not available.

At the time of registration of a request for international protection, the officers of the Police Headquarters, competent for asylum applications, register all the relevant information in a database called Vestanet. If there is an evidence for the application of the Dublin Regulation, Dublin Unit staff receive an alert in the Dublinet application and process it by creating an "Outgoing" folder. From the same database they forward the request to the MS that is deemed to be responsible for this, via messaging certified by EULISA

The police officers of the Police Headquarters and of the Central Immigration Department, headed by the Ministry of the Interior, and those of the Dublin unit, headed by the Department for civil liberties and immigration of the Ministry of the Interior itself have access to the two communicating databases, Vestanet and Dublinet (DBMS sql-server). In addition to the police officers, officials of the territorial commissions for asylum have access to the Vestanet database, who cannot manage the application as long as it remains in the "Dublin evidence" status, i.e. until the responsible MS has been determined.

The two databases (Vestanet and Dublinet) are connected via a unique key that uniquely identifies the applicant (UNIQUE INDIVIDUAL CODE (CUI) linked to the fingerprints).

For "Incoming" requests, the Dublinet database is automatically fed by messaging (certified by EULISA). The messaging data flows into the Dublinet database and creates new folders, identified with the Eurodac code and the CUI code. The police officers of the Central Immigration Department entered in the same database any information related to identity checks and the position of the applicant on the national territory (residence permits, any crimes committed, expulsions, etc ...).

The data recorded on Dulinet is detailed (complete personal data, Eurodac/CUI code, family relationships, type of Dublinet request, date of registration, request sent, transfer, relocation, attached documents, etc.) and is subsequently aggregated for statistical use by Business Intelligence software for transmission to Eurostat.

Daily.

Data are daily collected by the Ministry of Interior (Police headquarters) and directly register in the database (see source data). Data are consolidated and up-to-dat by the Dublin Unit (Ministry of Interior).

The validation process takes place through communication of the results and validation by the Dublin Unit.

Data are collected from the “Dublin Unit” caseworker and registered in a database through a DBMS procedures which verifies the correctness and consistency of the data entered. Subsequently, the data is processed using specific statistical software (Business Object) that generates the reports necessary to be sent to Eurostat.

Not applicable.

See below

None.