Seen as a major step in addressing security concerns, the advance passenger information system (APIS) will become operational in India from April 1 this year.
NEW DELHI: Seen as a major step in addressing security concerns, the advance passenger information system (APIS) will become operational in India from April 1 this year.
Under this, aircraft coming to India shall provide information in electronic form about passengers and crew on board, within fifteen minutes after taking off from the port of embarkation outside India, to the immigration authority at the port of landing in India.
The details of the passengers would include name, gender, date of birth, nationality, and passport details. APIS will facilitate expeditious immigration clearance as well as enhanced security screening of the passengers to check for possible terror threats.
At present, besides the US, APIS is operational in nine countries: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Bahrain, South Korea, China, Mexico, South Africa and Japan. It was installed in the US after 9/11. In India as well, as a presentation of home ministry said, APIS was required since “border control agencies have to be more vigilant due to the threat posed by international terrorism especially after 9/11”.
While passenger information would first be passed on to the immigration authorities for faster immigration clearance at airports, the data will also be shared with security agencies to check the presence of any “suspicious element” on board from their records.
The advance information would provide immigration officers and security agencies valuable lead time to run checks on databases of criminals/terrorists and also look for other indicators like countries visited and nationality.
APIS would also help make immigration clearance easier for those who do not fall in suspect categories. The union tourism ministry was in fact considering a scheme to provide visa on arrival to tourists from 18 countries to whose citizens India has started giving five-year multiple entry visas. Tourism minister Ambika Soni has earlier stated that visa on arrival could be introduced once APIS is in place.
s_rajesh@dnaindia.net
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