The European Commission supports AS4 for Passenger Name Record data exchange
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The CEF eDelivery team is supporting the implementation of the AS4 messaging protocol for Passenger Name Record (PNR) data exchange between airline companies and Passenger Information Units (PIUs) in the Member States. In this context, and to facilitate the implementation and adoption of AS4 among the different stakeholders in the PNR data exchange ecosystem, the CEF eDelivery team issued a document with guidelines for the Access Point PMode configuration for PNR.
PMode is a collection of parameters that determine how user messages are exchanged between Access Points within an eDelivery AS4 network with respect to, for example, naming conventions, quality of service, transmission mode and error handling. The guidelines for the PMode configuration for PNR can be used with any AS4 conformant solution and it defines the standard parameters regarding naming conventions (i.e. for responder and initiator parties), services and actions (i.e. name of the services that are used to describe the type of PNRGOV messages that are exchanged and transported over AS4) in the context of PNR data exchange. The Access Point PMode configuration guidelines for PNR were developed based on the IATA's Implementation Guide - PNRGOV message and in collaboration with the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security, early adopters of the AS4 protocol to exchange PNR data. These guidelines are recommendations that can be customised by the implementers according to specific needs. The CEF eDelivery Support team provides free of charge support to answer any questions on the document.
The use of AS4 for PNR data exchange
The PNR Directive ensures the use of passenger name record data for the prevention, detection, investigation and prosecution of terrorist offences and serious crime in the support of European law enforcement. The PNR Implementing Act, on the common protocols and data formats to be used by air carriers when transferring PNR data to PIUs, promotes, among two other transmission protocols, the use of AS4 protocol for the transfer of PNR data. AS4 is an open standard that ensures secure and reliable exchange of digital documents and messages in various contexts, it is the foundation of the eDelivery building block.
The PNR Implementing Act states that
“Industry and Member States should be encouraged to take the necessary measures so that AS4 becomes in the following years the reference protocol for the transmission of PNR data by air carriers to Member States’ PIUs.”
Since 25 May 2018, the PNR Directive is being actively implemented in the Member States. The Commission remains strongly committed to promote the use of AS4 to the largest extent possible. The CEF eDelivery team offers training sessions and deployment support of the CEF eDelivery components to public authorities. Support is also available to other stakeholders, such as airlines, that want to reuse Domibus, the European Commission sample implementation of the AS4 profile.
CEF eDelivery
The CEF eDelivery building block proposes the use of the AS4 messaging protocol to create a secure channel for the transmission of documents and data by electronic means, over the internet or via a private network. AS4 both provides evidence relating to the handling of the transmitted data as well as protecting it against the risk of loss, theft, damage or any unauthorised alterations. Projects use eDelivery to exchange documents and data in a secure way among many participants (within Europe and beyond).