Regional Movement Alert System (RMAS)
What is RMAS?
The Regional Movement Alert System (RMAS) is an APEC counter-terrorism initiative that enhances regional border security standards for air travel through the close cooperation and collaboration of participating governments.
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.
Additionally, RMAS is able to confirm that a passport is recognised as valid by its document issuing authority, and alerts authorities to passports that are not recognised as valid. This passport validation capacity makes RMAS a powerful tool for detecting counterfeit passports and removing them from circulation.
The department has played an important role in the development of RMAS and will continue to take the lead role in its administration and operation of RMAS.
Currently, the participating APEC economies are Australia, the United States of America and New Zealand.
How RMAS works
RMAS enables participating economies to automatically verify the status of passports and that they have been validly issued by directly accessing the passport databases maintained by each participating economy.
RMAS is a world first. It enables participating APEC economies to cooperate to improve border control and passenger facilitation without needing to pool data in a central database.
The ability of RMAS to verify the status of passports, and ensure they have been validly issued, with their document issuing authorities at the point of departure is one of the key features distinguishing it from systems that compile lost and stolen passport data.
Benefits of RMAS
Collaboration with other governments in the accessing of passport data is one very effective means to improve border integrity. These efforts can also assist in managing the increasing numbers of travellers.
Lost,stolen and fraudulent passports give criminals and terrorists the opportunity to steal another person's identity, travel illegally and commit other crimes. RMAS provides greater safety for airline passengers, crew and the people of participating APEC economies by enabling border authorities to confirm the status of passports before the person using the passport travels to orenters their territory.
Future directions
In November 2006, APEC leaders agreed to the further expansion of RMAS to other APEC economies wanting to participate.
Further information
More information about RMAS and other APEC Business Mobility Group initiatives is available on another website.
See: Business Mobility Group website