ABOUT THE REGIONAL MOVEMENT ALERT SYSTEM (RMAS) INITIATIVE

Background

Terrorism poses a major threat to security and to economic stability and prosperity throughout the world, including in the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, the safe and efficient movement of people across borders is vital to the continued growth in trade and services across the APEC region. As a result, APEC members acknowledge the need to manage more effectively and securely the movement of people across borders.

What is RMAS?

RMAS is an APEC counter-terrorism initiative that enhances regional border security for air travel through the close cooperation and collaboration of APEC governments.

RMAS strengthens the collective capacity of participating APEC economies to detect lost, stolen and otherwise invalid travel documents.  In addition to confirming a passport’s status at time of check-in, RMAS is able to determine whether that passport is recognised by its issuing authority as having been validly issued and, if necessary, prevent persons holding these documents from boarding flights travelling to participating economies. The capacity for passport validation makes RMAS a powerful tool for detecting counterfeit passports and removing them from circulation.
Currently Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America are all participating in RMAS.  RMAS membership is open to all eligible APEC economies.

The RMAS Guiding Principles are:

1. The scope of the RMAS and its data should focus on enhancing counter-terrorism capacities of participating economies;

2. RMAS design and operation will not affect the essential rights of a participating economy to determine who is permitted to enter the economy and on what basis they are permitted to enter;

3. Ownership and visibility of shared alert data would be vested in the economy that has provided that data;

4. Participating economies should not be able to use RMAS to monitor nationals of other participating economies without the express permission of that economy;

5. Privacy laws of each participating economy will be satisfied;

6. The operating system could be built and deployed so that it operates seamlessly with the departure control systems of airlines flying to participating economies;

7. The operating system would be built and deployed so that it complements and, if possible, is interoperable with, the existing border management systems of participating economies or other regional or multilateral systems developed for purposes of enhancing border security; and

8. Ultimately travel should be able to be monitored on a real-time rather than ex-post basis.

The RMAS Pilot

In November 2004 APEC Leaders agreed that Australia and the United States of America would conduct a pilot study of RMAS, using lost and stolen passport information held by those economies. The RMAS pilot commenced in September 2005 and New Zealand joined in March 2006. The pilot phase was successfully completed in December 2006. The pilot positively demonstrated that economies can establish connections to access each others lost, stolen and invalid passport information in real-time, without pooling data in a shared central database.

In November 2006, APEC Leaders welcomed the success of the RMAS pilot, and encouraged other APEC economies to join the now fully operational RMAS system.  APEC Ministers welcomed the development of an agreed supporting Multi-Lateral Framework to enable economies to join RMAS.

How RMAS works

Benefits of RMAS

There are currently more than three million lost or stolen passports recorded within the APEC region alone. This presents a significant opportunity for persons of concern to move across borders undetected. RMAS makes this much harder by identifying passengers, at airport check-in, if they attempt to use lost or stolen passports from participating economies.
RMAS strengthens each economy’s ability to detect and/or prevent the air travel of people of concern, including criminals and terrorists, and helps ensure that people are travelling using valid documents. RMAS further contributes to international security by enabling authorities to identify and remove counterfeit documents from circulation.

Benefits of RMAS include:

- Verification of accurate and up-to-date lost, stolen and invalid passport data - this is a valuable tool for governments in combating terrorism, illegal immigration and trans-national crime;

- Enhanced Security – the ability to conduct these checks will enhance security as well as facilitating genuine travellers and preventing unwanted persons from crossing national borders; and

- Increased focus on counter-terrorism - initiatives such as RMAS demonstrate the commitment of APEC economies to counter-terrorism efforts, and in particular, to regional counter-terrorism initiatives.

Future Directions

APEC Leaders have encouraged all APEC economies to consider participating in RMAS.

The 2007 APEC Ministerial Meeting Joint Statement reads:
“We noted progress in the APEC Regional Movement Alert System by participating members, which can detect lost, stolen and counterfeit passports and prevent improper use of travel documents and encouraged member economies to consider participation when ready.”

RMAS presents a model for cooperation between APEC economies, using technology to support and enhance border control and facilitation without the need to share or directly access each other’s databases.
The ability to verify if a travel document has been validly issued by Australia was implemented in June 2007.  Enhancements to RMAS are currently underway to enable the verification of passports issued by New Zealand and the United States of America as well.
Further information

Read more in the Guide to the Regional Movement Alert System, available here.

 

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