NBR wants to use advance passenger info system to be launched at airports
The National Board of Revenue has sought access to the advance passenger information system going to be introduced at the country’s airports to prevent transnational crimes like smuggling, import of prohibited goods and movement of risky passengers such as militants and criminals.
The customs wing of the revenue board has recently wrote two separate letters to the secretaries of the home and civil aviation ministries, the two implementing agencies of the system known as API, requesting NBR access to the system.
The customs also requested the ministries to follow the API guidelines jointly issued by World Customs Organisation, International Air Transport Association and International Civil Aviation Organisation in introducing the system.
Officials of the NBR said that introduction of the API system and their (NBR) access to the system would facilitate the customs officials to prevent transnational crimes including smuggling of gold and currency, import of prohibited goods, drug trafficking and others offences.
On the other hand, advance information about passengers will also expedite the customs clearance of riskless or low-risk passengers.
The API system will also facilitate the immigration department to track the movement of militants, criminals and other people having travel ban imposed by the international organisations like United Nations and take preventive measures for those from entering into the country.
Under the API system, airline authorities will send the details information of passengers and aircrafts to the online system of the Civil Aviation Authority, Bangladesh or border control authorities of destination country before the departure of the flights from the origin country.
The information may be collected based on the travel documents including passport and visa during purchase of ticket, seat reservation or check-in time.
The information includes name, address, nationality, country of birth, country of residence, details of passport and visa, country of origin, destination, travellers’ status like passenger, crew or in-transit and other relevant information.
The immigration agencies and customs authorities can become alert and take preventive measures against suspect passengers through examining the information under the risk management approach.
It will reduce hassles general passengers face at immigration and customs points, officials said.
Currently, carriers give the information of passengers in the form of hard copy after arriving at the destination country.
Customs authorities get almost no use of the information as they don’t get time to examine those information unless they have advance information about any suspect.
A senior official of the NBR told New Age that they wrote the letters to the two secretaries of the government for taking necessary steps in this regard.
‘As far as we know the home ministry has no objection to giving access to the customs but the CAAB is against the access to the customs,’ he said.
Civil aviation ministry officials said that they had already sought opinion of the CAAB about the proposal of the customs authorities.
The CAAB in 2015 took the move to introduce the API system but later the progress of its introduction process became slow, officials said.
After the recent militant attacks in the country, the process gets momentum as part of enhancing security measures at the airports, they said.
