Airlines could be required to provide, in advance, passenger information and name record data to Rwanda’s Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration, before taking off or starting journeys, as the country seeks to bolster measures against terrorism offences and serious crimes, according to a new bill.
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The relevance of the draft law on advance passenger information and passenger name record data was approved by the Plenary Sitting of the Lower Chamber of Parliament, on July 31. It will be scrutinised by a responsible committee of the Lower House, prior to being voted into law by its Plenary Sitting.
According to the bill, “transport carriers” includes air, road, railway and water transport carriers with a valid operating licence or equivalent document for carriage of passengers.
The government bill was tabled before the Lower Chamber of Parliament by the Minister in the Office of the President, Judith Uwizeye, on July 31.
The bill, Uwizeye said, aims to regulate the collection, transmission, assessment, and sharing of Advance Passenger Information and Passenger Name Record data for passenger preclearance and prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crimes. Data provided for in the bill includes Advance Passenger Information (API) and Passenger Name Record (PNR) data.
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API means information regarding a passenger, crew or other occupant transported by the transport carrier, the draft law indicated.
According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), API refers to a passenger’s identity and includes full name, date of birth, gender, citizenship and travel document data. API is typically obtained from travel documents and available from the machine-readable area of your passport.
The bill defines Passenger Name Record (PNR) as a record of each passenger’s travel, which contains the information necessary to enable reservations to be processed and controlled by the booking and participating transport carriers for each journey booked by or on behalf of any person, contained in reservation systems, departure control systems used to check passengers, or equivalent systems providing the same functionalities.
The Directorate General of Immigration and Emigration and any responsible State organ, ensure the confidentiality of processing data and data security in accordance with relevant legislation on data protection.
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Concerning faults and their sanctions, the bill proposes that an Order of the Minister in charge of immigration and emigration determines faults and their sanctions with regard to non-compliance with provisions of this law (once enacted), modalities of administering the sanctions, and appeal.
