This week ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu joined UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) Under-Secretary-General Mr. Vladimir Voronkov in formalizing an important new Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) today, aimed at building member state capacity to prevent, detect and investigate terrorist offences and other serious crimes through the collection and analysing of Advance Passenger Information (API) and Passenger Name Record (PNR) data.
The new programme importantly follows an ‘All-of-UN’ approach, jointly led by UNOCT and implemented in partnership with ICAO, the Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United Nations Office of Information and Communication Technology (OICT), and INTERPOL.
“Moving forward,” Dr. Liu continued, “we will be helping member states to have a fuller understanding of their international obligations under the related new amendments to Annex 9 (Facilitation) to the Chicago Convention, and to resolve any conflicts of law that inhibit the international transfer and processing of PNR data with full respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
“We will also assist them in establishing a suitable legislative framework to regulate the collection, transmission, use, retention and sharing of passenger data, in compliance with internationally recognized standards on API, and based upon a universal legal standard that supports the responsible collection, use, processing and protection of PNR data.”
The new UNOCT-ICAO agreement comes into effect upon its signing and will guide the related programme efforts through August 2022.
The ICAO Council adopted the related Amendment to Annex 9 of the Chicago Convention at its 220th Session earlier this year. Amendment 28 will become effective in October 2020 and applicable in February 2021.