On August 08, 2022, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (“CBITC”) under the Ministry of Finance recently notified the Passenger Name Record Information Regulations, 2022 (“Regulations”) under the Customs Act, 1962. As per the Regulations, all registered airlines will have to mandatorily provide details of all international passengers, flying to or from India, to the Customs department. The details to be shared include a total of 19 passenger data points listed under ‘Annexure-II’ of the Regulations, several of which fall under the category of personal data as defined by the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). Such over-broad sharing of personal data and non-personal data, i.e., at scale, raises several privacy concerns, especially given the recent withdrawal of the draft Data Protection Bill (“DPB”), 2021.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://internetfreedom.in/the-flight-is-about-to-take-off-with-your-luggage-and-data/