Advance Passenger Information System

The preliminary Passenger Information System (English Advance Passenger Information System, APIS ) is an automated system to send personal data to some countries - particularly the United States - they demand for entry and exit.

The transmitted data include:

• Name
• First name
• Biometric data
• Date of birth
• Nationality
• Passport number
• Sex

The airlines of the Board of Airline Representatives in Germany ( BARIG ) have agreed on a standard form for U.S. travelers. In it, the data is recorded, the want to get transmitted from the October 4, 2005 before the departure in Germany, the U.S. authorities. The traveler should obtain and fill out the form at check-in upon booking to submit, so Gaebges Martin, Secretary General of Barig. There, in addition to the pass data is the country where the passenger lives, and the first address in the U.S. (hotel, car rental station ) queried. The airlines want to prevent so that each airline makes other provisions. Many airlines ( eg Lufthansa, Air France, British Airways and Air Canada ) offer the possibility to enter the requested information on their respective websites and to save.

Similar procedures in the European Union

For the European Union, Council Directive 2004/82/EC of 29 April 2004 provides that carriers who transport people across the Schengen external borders of the EU, at the request of the authorities responsible for border control authority after completion of the check- Add the following data to this authority with:

• The number and type of travel document,
• Nationality,
• The full name,
• Date of birth,
• The border crossing point of entry into the Schengen area,
• The code of transport,
• The departure and arrival time,
• The total number of passengers carried on that transport and
• The original point of departure.

The data is collected for the purpose of facilitating border control and thus to prevent illegal entry and may only be used for other purposes if this is in the performance of tasks of the Border Protection, as such, perhaps because the data in a criminal case for illegal entry as evidence or as to justify the departure country a rejected at the border person. The data, provided that they are no longer needed for such purposes, to delete from the border authorities no later than 24 hours after admission. The transport company must delete the data in any case 24 hours after the landing of the aircraft. Passengers shall be informed in collecting the data from the forwarding to the Border Agency.

A major difference between the U.S. and the EU regime is that the data must be collected only at the request of the competent authority boundary and not always.

In Germany the Directive with § 31a Federal Police Act was transposed into national law.

Similar procedures worldwide

The system of pre- recorded passenger information - Advance Passenger Information System (Apis ) - currently to / ex U.S. and Mexico, Canada, Korea, Syria and Japan, is applied. Since 3 June 2008, the PRC requires the transmission. Other countries such as India, Thailand, South Africa and Russia are planning to introduce APIS.