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Geneva – Aviation still remains an attractive target for terrorists or for the commission of acts of unlawful interference, according to Carolina Ramirez, global director of security and facilitation at the International Air Transport Association (Iata).
She said airlines were not always convinced that passenger data was being used as effectively as possible to facilitate entry procedures for legitimate travellers.
At the same time, due to a lack of international police cooperation, states were often not able to identify those people who posed a security threat despite passenger data.
“That means that our job today is even more relevant, challenging, and needs the support and appropriate resources to stay a step ahead of the next plot – and that is not easy,” she said at Iata’s global media briefing on Thursday.
She emphasised that states should provide airlines with guidance regarding threats to their passengers, crew and aircraft.
“This information must be accessible in a timely, authoritative, accurate, consistent, and unequivocal way,” said Ramirez.
“While airlines do try to share pertinent information, including security information, this in no way is a substitute for the authoritative and intelligence-based resources that are available to states.”
As for flights over conflict zones, she said Iata wanted to stress the need for airlines to receive appropriate and accurate security information from states to be able to best perform their own risk and threat assessments.
“Along with keeping our aircraft secure in flight, we also want to keep terrorists from getting on board in the first place,” warned Ramirez.
“The need to prevent the movement of foreign terrorist fighters to and from the Syrian conflict zone gave this issue particular urgency and relevance in 2015, and will continue doing doing so in 2016.”
In Iata’s view the role of governments should be to analyse information collected through advance passenger information (API) and passenger name record (PNR) data.
This was regarded as critical to ensure that those posing a known or suspected threat were identified before they attempt to check in.
“The problem is that states regularly ignore global standards and recommended practices for both API and PNR and implement programme requirements that cannot be supported by existing IT infrastructure,” said Ramirez.
“This increases airline costs and also creates challenges to ensuring the information is being properly received and vetted by government agencies.”
Ten years ago less than 12 states had data exchange provisions in effect, compared to more than 60 states today.
“It is conceivable that by 2020 150 countries could implement data exchange requirements for flights to and from their territories,” she said.
“Governments and the aviation industry must communicate, support and understand each other’s needs for a successful implementation phase and using the same standards and in an efficient way.”
“The debate on data privacy has prevented a sustainable and cost-effective PNR solution from taking root. Clearly this situation is unsustainable and states must begin to agree on data sharing norms.”
* Carin Smith is a guest of Iata at its global media event.
