Commentaries: Art. 92a

In order to improve border controls and to combat unlawful entry into the Schengen area and transit through the international transit zones of the airports, at the request of the border control authorities SEM may require air carriers to provide personal data on the passengers it is carrying and data on the flight to SEM or to the authority responsible for the border controls. The data must be transmitted immediately after departure.¹ 1bis. SEM may extend the duty to provide data to other flights: a. at the request of fedpol: to combat international organised crime and terrorism; b. at the request of the FIS: to respond to threats to internal and external security that arise from terrorism, espionage and preparations for illegal trading in weapons and radioactive materials and illegal technology transfers.² 1ter. The data must be transmitted immediately after departure.³
The order to provide data must contain:
1. the airports or states of departure;
2. the data categories in accordance with paragraph 3;
3. the technical details on data transmission.
The duty to provide data applies to the following data categories:
1. biographical data (surname, first name(s), sex, date of birth, nationality) of the persons being carried;
2. number, issuing state, type and expiry date of the travel document held;
3. number, issuing state, type and expiry date of the visa or residence document held provided the air carrier has this data;
4. airport of departure, transfer airports or airport of destination in Switzerland, together with details of the flight itinerary booked for the persons concerned insofar as known to the air carrier;
5. code of transport;
6. number of persons carried on the flight concerned;
7. planned date and time of departure and arrival.
The air carriers shall inform the data subjects in accordance with Article 19 of the Data Protection Act of 25 September 2020⁴(FADP).⁵
Orders imposing or lifting the duty to provide data are made as general rulings and are published in the Federal Gazette. Appeals against such rulings do not have suspensive effect.
Air carriers may retain the data in accordance with paragraph 3 solely for evidentiary purposes. They must erase the data:
1. when it is established that SEM will not open proceedings for a violation of the duty to provide data, or two years after the date of the flight at the latest;
2. on the day after the ruling pursuant to Article 122b takes full legal effect.

Amended by No I of the FA of 14 Dec. 2018 (Procedural Regulations and Information Systems), in force since 1 June 2019 (AS 2019 1413;BBl 2018 1685). ↩
Inserted by No I of the FA of 14 Dec. 2018 (Procedural Regulations and Information Systems), in force since 1 June 2019 (AS 2019 1413;BBl 2018 1685). ↩
Inserted by No I of the FA of 14 Dec. 2018 (Procedural Regulations and Information Systems), in force since 1 June 2019 (AS 2019 1413;BBl 2018 1685). ↩
SR 235.1 ↩
Amended by Annex 1 No 1 of the FD of 19 March 2021 on the Approval and Implementation of the Exchange of Notes between Switzerland and the EU on the Adoption of Regulations (EU) 2019/817 and (EU) 2019/818 on Establishing a Framework for Interoperability between EU Information Systems, in force since 15 June 2025 (AS 2025 347;BBl 2020 7983). ↩

Art. 92a

Footnotes