Pakistan: passenger data record

Data protection law status

MoITT's legislation page lists three Personal Data Protection Bill drafts, dated 2 July 2018, 9 April 2020 and 1 May 2023 ¹. Each is marked draft and no approved version is listed ¹.

MoITT's Data Governance Policy 2026, dated June 2026, takes effect on gazette notification and its gazette reference is marked pending Cabinet approval ². Clause 11.3 says the policy will be updated to align with the Personal Data Protection Law once that law is enacted ². Clause 16.9 leaves supervision of personal data processing to the authority designated under that law ². Clause 8.2 says restricted, confidential and personal data are to be hosted, stored and processed within Pakistan ².

FIA Immigration Wing and IBMS

The FIA says its Immigration Wing was established in 1975 ³. Its listed functions include enforcing the Exit Control List and the Provisional National Identification List, examining travel documents of arriving and departing passengers, and issuing visas on arrival at designated points ³.

The FIA's IBMS page says the system tracks all incoming and outgoing international travellers under the FIA Act 1974 and the Foreigners Registration Act 1964 ⁴. It took over the database of the earlier PISCES system, which was set up under the FIA in 2002 with partial assistance of the US government ⁴. The page reports a database of more than 206 million travellers since 2003 ⁴.

The two FIA pages give different counts of entry and exit points. The Immigration Wing page lists 13 airports, 5 land routes, 4 seaports and 2 railway stations ³. The IBMS page lists 14 airports, 7 land borders, 4 sea ports and 2 railway stations ⁴. Neither page is dated.

Interior Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan inaugurated the FIA's Integrated Border Management System, described as integrated with other agencies including NADRA, as reported by Aamir Javed Butt for ARY News on 9 August 2023 ¹⁰.

NADRA's role

A 2022 ICAO TRIP Symposium presentation by the then NADRA chairman, Muhammad Tariq Malik, said IBMS was deployed at all airports, land ports and sea ports of Pakistan ⁵. It reported 218,563,460 travellers processed through IBMS ⁵. It listed biometric verification, stop-list checks and document authentication as IBMS functions, with a link to the Interpol stolen passports database ⁵. It showed advance passenger information as a data feed to the IBMS central server ⁵. The presentation does not state who built IBMS ⁵.

API and PNR

The Federal Board of Revenue said on 20 November 2019 that Pakistan Customs had launched the Global Travelers Assessment System, which uses API and PNR data to profile travellers, at seven major airports ⁸.

On 20 and 21 March 2023 Pakistan Customs hosted a national consultation on API and PNR with the UN Countering Terrorist Travel Programme, covering the goTravel system ⁶. More than 30 representatives of national agencies took part ⁶. The UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate said the findings would inform a national API/PNR road map, with UNOCT to coordinate technical assistance once Pakistan accepts it ⁷.

The FIA Immigration Wing page lists lack of access to the IATA Advance Passengers Information System as a gap ³.

E-gates

Interior Minister Mohsin Raza Naqvi chaired a meeting on a one-window airport clearance plan, as reported by Iftikhar A. Khan in Dawn on 23 April 2026 ⁹. E-gates using biometric passport scanners and facial recognition are planned, likely starting at Islamabad International Airport ⁹. They are to be linked to the FIA exit control list, passenger name records and Interpol databases ⁹.

Chronology