goTravel: UN Passenger Data Analysis System
The UN's passenger data analysis platform for detecting known and suspected terrorists across air, maritime and land borders. We integrated new carrier data feeds in the IATA/UN EDIFACT formats and built watchlist connectors to member states' own screening sources.
- Client
- United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT)
- Country
- Austria
- Attribution
- Delivered by Softwiz · architected and reviewed by Anil Channa
- Sector
- Government / Border Security
The Client & Their Context
goTravel is the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism's passenger data analysis platform, provided to member states to help them meet their obligations under UN Security Council resolutions on advance passenger information. It is used by border and intelligence agencies to screen travellers before they arrive.
The Problem
Each member state that adopts the platform brings its own carriers, its own message formats and its own watchlist sources. Onboarding a new country means integrating unfamiliar data feeds into a system where a parsing error is not a cosmetic bug, it is a missed detection or a false positive against a real traveller. The work has to be exact, and it has to be done without destabilising a platform other states are already relying on.
The Constraint
Border agencies in other member states were screening live traffic on the platform throughout. Onboarding a new country could not destabilise the states already relying on it, which rules out both a maintenance window to hide a mistake in and any version of "we will fix it in the next release".
What We Built
- Integrated new carrier data feeds in the PNRGOV and PAXLST message formats, the IATA/UN EDIFACT standards for passenger name records and advance passenger information.
- Built watchlist connectors linking the platform to member states' own screening sources.
- Extended the existing .NET codebase to accommodate new data sources without disrupting states already operating on the platform.
- Handled the format variation between carriers, where the same nominal standard is implemented inconsistently in practice.
We do not publish client quotations. Most of this work sits under NDA. If you would like to speak to someone who has worked with us, ask for a reference and we will arrange an introduction.
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