Advance Passenger Information/Passenger Name Record

The Advance Passenger Information/Passenger Name Record (API/PNR) program is designed to protect Canadians by enabling the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) to perform a risk assessment of travellers prior to their arrival in Canada.

Obtaining passenger information in advance of a commercial carrier's arrival in Canada provides the CBSA with time to assess and identify any passengers who may be subject to closer questioning or examination on arrival in Canada because of their potential relationship to terrorism or terrorism-related crimes, or other serious crimes such as the smuggling of drugs and humans.

While information is a key tool to ensure the safety of our country, the CBSA equally respects the fundamental right to privacy and is vigilant in ensuring that the proper privacy safeguards are in place.

• About the Program
  • Background
  • Protection of Personal Information
  • Your Rights
• International Arrangements
• Information for Travellers
  • Information Notice for Persons Travelling to Canada by Commercial Carrier

Background

Under Canadian law, all commercial carriers are required to provide the CBSA with API/PNR data relating to all persons on board a conveyance bound for Canada.

Advance Passenger Information (API)
Basic data identifying a person including the traveller's name, date of birth, gender, citizenship or nationality and travel document data. This type of information can be obtained from the machine-readable area of a person's passport.

Passenger Name Record (PNR)
Data that relates to a traveler's reservation and travel itinerary including type of ticket, date of travel, number of bags, etc. This type of information can be obtained from a commercial carrier's departure control and reservation systems.

API/PNR data has historically been available from travellers upon their arrival in Canada through a review of their identification and travel documentation such as passport, ticket and itinerary and by questioning during the customs and immigration processes.

Similar programs are successfully being used by a number of other border inspection agencies worldwide, including those of the United States and Australia.

While the API/PNR program will ultimately be implemented for all modes of transportation, the current focus is on air travel.

Protection of Personal Information

The CSBA is committed to ensuring the safety and security of Canada's borders in a manner that respects and upholds an individual's fundamental right to privacy. To this end, the API/PNR program has strict safeguards in place to ensure that the information is used only where necessary to support the program and the protection of Canadians.

Passenger data provided to the CBSA by commercial carriers is protected under Canadian legislation. The CBSA does not require commercial carriers to gather or provide any additional PNR data elements that are not already recorded for their own business purposes.

It is the policy of the CBSA:

• to protect and manage API/PNR data in accordance with Canadian legislation;
• to disclose, allow access to or use data information only when authorized to do so by law;
• to share API/PNR data with outside agencies only for certain specified purposes to protect the health, safety and security of Canadians, or for any judicial proceedings or as otherwise required by Canadian law;
• to retain the data for a minimum period necessary for border management purposes or to otherwise meet the requirements of Canadian law; and
• to limit access to the data to authorized CBSA officials.

The API/PNR program may be subject to compliance reviews and investigations by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

Privacy Impact Assessment Summary
These summaries provide information on what the CSBA is doing to ensure that individuals' privacy rights are respected under programs managed by the CBSA.

Your Rights

You have a right to request a copy of the API/PNR data that commercial carriers provide to the CBSA under the API/PNR program that is maintained in the CBSA's Passenger Information System (PAXIS). You can also request that a notation be included if any of the information is incorrect.

To request access to your API/PNR data or to file a concern or correction, contact in writing:

Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator
Canada Border Services Agency
Leima Building
410 Laurier Avenue West, 11th Floor
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0L8

International Arrangements

To keep Canada's borders safe and secure, the CBSA works very closely with other law enforcement agencies and other countries to determine potential risks ahead of time.

The CBSA equally respects an individual's fundamental right to privacy and has committed to ensuring that personal information provided by international commercial carriers is secure.

United States

Canada and the U.S. have an agreement to share passenger data under the terms of initiative No. 8 of the Canada-U.S. Smart Border Declaration and associated 32-point Action Plan. Under this agreement, the passenger data provided will not be shared with any third parties.

European Union

Negotiations with the European Union (EU) on the processing of API/PNR data have concluded and it is anticipated that this will add another security layer to the safety of Canada and will help fight against trans-national crime. Like the CBSA, the EU takes privacy issues very seriously. The arrangement with the EU will promote Canada's national security interests while safeguarding the privacy of the API/PNR data provided by European commercial carriers.

• EU and Canada sign agreement on the transfer of air passenger data (October 3, 2005)