Applications for international protection cannot be lodged if the person refuses to be fingerprinted. In case of refusal, the person will remain undocumented. The fingerprints are crosschecked in the police’s database for possible Eurodac hits. GCR is not aware of any person who refused to be fingerprinted. Where an asylum application is being lodged in Greece and the authorities consider that another Member State is responsible for examining the application, Greece must issue a request for that Member State to take charge of the applicant no later than three months after the lodging of the application, in accordance with Article 21 of the Dublin III Regulation. However, following a change of practice on the part of the German Dublin Unit following the CJEU’s ruling in Mengesteab, the Greek Dublin Unit strives to send “take charge” requests within three months of the expression of the will to seek international protection, rather than the lodging of the claim by the Asylum Service, although Greece considers the actual lodging of the application and not the expression of a will to seek asylum as the starting point of this three-month deadline. The applicant is not officially informed by the Greek Dublin Unit of the fact that the request has been made, nor on the basis of what evidence. It is the asylum applicant’s legal representative who follows up on the procedure and provides the applicant with feedback on the steps that have been made. Dublin Unit officers contact the applicant directly only if the case has been rejected, in order to request for supplementary documentation, which will be included in the re-examination request. In case of a final rejection, no written information is provided to the applicant. In practice, the case is internally referred to the regular procedure. On the contrary, if the reunification request is accepted, an inadmissibility decision mentioning that the requested Member State is responsible to examine the asylum application based on the provisions of the Regulation (EU) 604/2013 is delivered to the applicant. Given the severe restrictions posed by other Member States on family reunification, as above described, the Dublin Unit consistently prepares for a rejection and anticipates re-examination requests.502 A change in statistical practices of the Dublin Unit was noted since 2020, as the publication of monthly statistics of the Unit stopped in March 2020 to be substituted by Monthly Reports issued by the Ministry of Migration and Asylum.503 These Reports include some but not all the data previously provided by the monthly statistics of the Greek Dublin Unit. 2.2.1. Individualised guarantees During 2022, the Greek Dublin Unit continued to request individual guarantees concerning the reception conditions and access to the asylum procedure for Dublin returnees. 504 There is no data as to the practice in 2024. With regards to take charge requests, most of the transfers concern family reunification cases and, therefore, the applicants have explicitly expressed their will to move to the third country. For children’s Best Interest Assessment, see above, section on application of the Dublin criteria. 2.2.2. Transfers Based on GCR’s experience, transfers under the Dublin III Regulation are carried out by the Asylum Service, with the assistance of EUAA personnel. The Transfer Department of the Dublin Unit follows the transfer procedure. The department coordinates with the responsible travel agency for the tickets to be booked and sent to the applicants and/or their legal representative in due time. Before the transfer takes place, the Dublin Unit submits medical documents to the airline company, as well as the requested Member State. On the day of transfer, an employee from the Department of Foreign Affairs meets the applicants at the airport in order to provide them with a laissez-passer, help them with the check-in and boarding. The above-mentioned information regarding the transfer is forwarded to the asylum applicants by the Greek Dublin Unit, along with the tickets. Travel costs are covered by the Asylum Service. During 2023, transfers of asylum applicants, including unaccompanied minors, in the context of family reunification ("Dublin III") were suspended due to the termination of the contract for the provision of air 502 503 504 ECRE, The Role of EASO Operations in National Asylum Systems’, 29 November 2019, available at: https://bit.ly/46IkjHB. Monthly reports of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum are available at: https://bit.ly/3OFlP83. AIDA, The Implementation of the Dublin III Regulation in 2022, November 2023, p. 19, available at: https://bit.ly/3smFIYS 98