A NEW LAW requires air carriers to provide advance information to immigration authorities on passengers travelling from non-EU countries to Ireland.
Justice Minister Alan Shatter has signed the regulations into Irish law on foot of an EU directive aimed at improving border controls and combating illegal immigration.
The regulations will apply to all inbound flights to Ireland from outside the EU and to all passengers on those flights.
The information to be provided is contained on the machine-readable zone of passports and the data will be transmitted to Irish immigration authorities after the completion of a flight’s check-in.
This will “facilitate checks against watchlists to identify persons of interest before passengers arrive at border control”, according to the Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service (INIS).
It says this will benefit of both the State and genuine passengers by assisting in the prevention of crime and immigration abuses and facilitating the smooth passage of legitimate travellers.
Signing the regulations, Minster Shatter commented: “Illegal immigration is a flagrant abuse of our immigration system which cannot be tolerated.”
In the initial stages a prototype system will be developed as a test before building a system to receive and process passenger data from airlines. The prototype will be introduced on a pilot phase before the end of this year.
EU member states may impose fines and other sanctions on carriers that fail to comply with the obligation to transmit passenger data.
The regulations provide for deletion of the passenger data within 24 hours, but in the case of “a person of concern” it may be retained for up to three years.
