No entry: ICA to bar high-risk, undesirable travellers from boarding Singapore-bound ships, flights

The Star

5 days ago

SINGAPORE: High-risk or undesirable travellers who pose a health, security, or immigration threat to Singapore will soon be denied the chance to board air or sea transport to travel here.
The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) will be able to issue no-boarding directives (NBDs) to transport operators to prevent such travellers from boarding ships and flights bound for Singapore.
ICA plans to roll out the NBDs to prevent arrivals at air checkpoints from 2026 and at sea checkpoints from 2028.
Transport operators who fail to comply with an NBD can be fined up to S$10,000.
The move comes in the wake of the Immigration (Amendment) Act that came into force on Dec 31, 2024.
An initial plan, first reported in 2023, to weed out such passengers travelling into Singapore through land checkpoints faced roadblocks, as the proposal would have required bus operators to collect and submit passenger information in advance.
Bus operators with routes across the Causeway had told The Straits Times in 2023 that the plan to submit in advance passenger information to ICA could be difficult to implement and might affect business.
On July 31, ICA said that while collecting passenger and crew information in advance has been the norm for airline and ship operators, such information is generally not readily available at land checkpoints.
ST understands the authorities are still looking into ways to implement similar measures at land checkpoints.
Meanwhile, enhancements to Singapore's border security, including through new profiling and detection capabilities, have allowed ICA to identify more high-risk travellers before their arrival to Singapore.
This has translated into a 43 per cent increase in the number of foreigners refused entry into the Republic in the first half of 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.
People who can be denied entry include those who had been previously barred from entering Singapore after being convicted of certain crimes.
On July 31, Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam attended the official opening of the ICA services centre (ISC) in Crawford Street. The centre, which came into service in April, is adjacent to the previous ICA building.
Shanmugam, who is also Coordinating Minister for National Security, said ICA's transformation comes at a time of increasing traveller volumes across the nation's borders.
He pointed out that traveller volumes through Singapore's checkpoints increased to 230 million passengers in 2024, compared with the 197 million who passed through the Republic's borders in 2015.
Shanmugam said traveller volume is expected to increase further with the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System that is expected to be operational in December 2026; the Changi Airport Terminal 5 slated to open by the mid-2030s; and the expansion of Woodlands Checkpoint over the next 10 to 15 years.
He said: 'But the limitation is that ICA's manpower cannot grow indefinitely, so we have been drawing more on technology to cope with this demand and to really navigate the more complex security environment.'
To that end, ICA said it has achieved its vision to transform checkpoint clearance operations by becoming among the first border agencies in the world to implement passport-less immigration clearance.
This was part of ICA's New Clearance Concept that was first announced in 2019, to provide faster and more secure immigration clearance.
All travellers to and from Singapore can now clear immigration in an automated, passport-less process. This involves a facial or iris biometric scan at air and sea checkpoints, or clearance using a QR-code for those travelling through land checkpoints.
As of June 30, ICA said some 93 million travellers have cleared immigration without needing to present their passports.
Shanmugam said the implementation of QR-code clearance has been a game-changer for those travelling through Woodlands and Tuas checkpoints, with clearance time being reduced by up to 30 per cent from before.
ICA is also planning to roll out its automated passenger clearance system (APCS) at the Tuas Checkpoint for those travelling in cars, motorcycles and cargo vehicles by end-2026, without the need to use counters manned by officers.
ICA said the automated process will allow them to operate more efficiently. The APCS will be implemented at Woodlands Checkpoint at a later time.
The authority said around 95 per cent of its services have gone digital, and more than 95 per cent of the public are submitting their applications online.
Superintendent Kalaivanan Pannerchilvam, deputy director of customer operations at ICA, said: 'A key feature of the ISC is the self-collection kiosks, where eligible customers can collect their passports and identity cards via these kiosks, anytime within the date of appointment.'
Those using the kiosks will need to input their personal identification information, and complete iris verification before collecting their documents.
Customers can collect both their passports and identity cards on the same day in one transaction at the kiosk.
The self-collection kiosks are part of the ISC's Integrated Smart Document Management system, which was launched in July.
The retrieval and delivery of documents, which was previously managed by ICA officers, are now done by robots. - The Straits Times/ANN