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Regional Movement Alert System (RMAS)
The objective of RMAS is to strengthen the collective capacity of participating APEC economies to detect lost, stolen and otherwise invalid travel documents and to prevent them from being used illegally.
How it started
Australia and the United States began operating a pilot version of RMAS, (called the Regional Movement Alert List (RMAL) system), in September 2005.
New Zealand joined the pilot system in March 2006.
The tri-lateral pilot positively demonstrated that economies can establish connections to access each others' lost, stolen and invalid passport data in real-time, without pooling data in a shared central database.
How it works
A key component of RMAS is the RMAS Broker. It acts like a switchboard for routing queries and answers to and from border systems and the passport databases of participating economies.
No data is stored in the RMAS Broker, which means that data is accessed and not exchanged and each economy controls how much information is made available to another economy. This approach also ensures that only the most up-to-date data is accessed.
A vital part of RMAS is the contact between each economy's 24/7 operational centres for clarifying details and ensuring genuine travellers are not inconvenienced when a participating economy receives a RMAS notification.
Future Directions
RMAS presents a model as to how economies can cooperate to improve border control and facilitation through the near instantaneous automated checking of passport data at its source. Based on its success, APEC Leaders have agreed to the further expansion of RMAS to other APEC economies wishing to participate.
In addition to its expansion to other economies, possible technological enhancements to RMAS would provide more advanced options for improving border control and facilitation. Work is underway to expand the range of data accessed through RMAS from lost and stolen passports to all passports. This would enable border authorities to check the validity and authenticity of other economy's travel documents and would assist in the detection of counterfeit passports.
For further information contact:
Christopher Hawkins
on E-mail:
ch@apec.org
Anita Douglas
on E-mail:
ad@apec.org
Informal Experts' Group on Business Mobility (IEGBM)
