Funds sought to improve border control measures

• Immigration and Emigration Dept. seeks Treasury funds to set up deep risk analysis, targeting, tracking and operational centre
• Says airlines have already agreed to provide API and PNR data following EasterSunday attacks
• Proposed centre expected to collaborate with databases of Interpol and other global intelligence agencies

By Nishel Fernando 

The Immigration and Emigration Department is seeking funds from the Treasury to set up a deep risk analysis, targeting, tracking and operational centre to enhance measures to counter terrorist entering the country.

The envisaged centre is slated to enhance government’s border control measures as it could help the Department to pre-identify travellers and patterns.

Immigration and Emigration Controller General R.M.P.S.B. Rathnayake told Mirror Business that his Department would utilise data from Advanced Passenger Information (API) and 
Passenger Name Records (PNR) provided by airlines to pre-identify travellers.

He noted that airlines have already agreed to provide API and PNR data from next week onwards. According to International Air Transport Association (IATA), over 70 countries now require airlines to pass API before the arrival of a flight while access to PNR is required in 25 countries.

While pointing out that manual analysis and processing of passenger data volumes is almost impossible, Rathnayake stressed that a deep risk analysis, targeting, tracking and operational centre is a must. 

The proposed centre is expected to collaborate with databases of Interpol and other global intelligence agencies to determine the origins of travellers, while utilising advanced tech tools such as Artificial Intelligence and geo tagging. 

Following Easter Sunday attacks, the government pledged to strengthen border control measures to prevent terrorists and other extreme elements entering the country. 
Sri Lanka was also recently chosen to be one of the first beneficiary states of United Nations’ Countering Terrorist Travel Programme that seeks to support member states to enhance their detection capacity to stem the inflow of foreign terrorists.

The UN announced that it will make available its state-of-the-art software goTravel to its member countries.

The software is capable of analyzing travel data based on context-specific risks, which in turn would support to detect and track suspected terrorists and their movements across borders.
The proposed centre is expected to be set-up within the Immigration and Emigration Department.  

Senior Department officials said that there’s also a proposal to issue on-arrival visas for tourists by analysing pre-arrival traveller data. “Depending on the success, we will consider issuing visas on arrival without requiring any documentation,” Rathnayake said. 

Further, Rathnayake revealed that the Immigration and Emigration Department will commence developing basic designs for another tracking system to monitor suspicious activities of foreign travellers inside the country.

“We are starting the basic designs of the tracking system from next week onwards, which should be ready to go into operation by the end of next year onwards,” he said.
He pointed out that the proposed tracking system would be crucial to determine the whereabouts of tourists at any given time.