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Centre directs airlines to furnish prior info about international flyers to & from India

By: Saurabh Sinha

New Delhi: In a significant development, aircraft operators are now required to share all travel-related information about passengers, including their pre-booked meal, if any, travelling in and out of India at least 24 hours before their flight departure time.

This information will have to be shared with a Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) established agency, National Customs Targeting Centre Passenger (NCTC-P), to do “risk analysis of passengers” for “prevention, detection, in- vestigation and prosecution of offences (under Customs rules)”, and for law enforcement agencies and government departments, as required, in India and abroad, Times of India reported.

CBIC, which comes under the Union Finance Ministry, issued a gazette notification on Monday (Aug 8) titled “Passenger Name Record Information Regulations, 2022” and is effective from that date. According to it, every aircraft operator is now required to register and provide passenger details in a prescribed format to NCTC-P “not later than twenty four hours before the departure time; or at the de- parture time-wheels off”.

The new rule provides for “an extensive independent system audit and security audit on annual basis, to prevent any misuse of the passenger name record information”. Aircraft operators not provi- ding this data can be fined Rs 25000.

RISK ANALYSIS

This “passenger name re- cord information” will in- clude details like “PNR; date of reservation and issue of ticket; available ticket; frequent flyer and benefit information (like free tickets, upgrades); (like free tickets, upgrades); all available payment/billing information (like credit card number); travel itinera ry for specific PNR; travel agency/travel agent”.

It will also include “split/ divided information (when one PNR contains a referen ce to another PNR); ticketing information, including tick et number, one-way tickets; baggage information; seat number, any collected ‘ad vance passenger informa tion’ information that is ini tially captured by an air car rier within its PNR, such as passport number, date of birth and gender) and all his torical changes to the PNR”.

“NCTC-P to receive and process passenger name re cord information along with any other information rele vant for risk analysis of pas sengers for the purpose of (a) prevention, detection, in vestigation and prosecution of offences under the Act and the rules and regulations made there under; or (b) law enforce ment agencies or government departments of India or any other country may specify for the purposes of regulation 10,” stated the notification.

Source: TOI

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