Liberia: passenger data rules and border system records

Data protection law status

As reported by Leroy M. Sonpon in the Liberian Observer on 11 June 2025, President Boakai sent the Legislature "An Act for the Collection, Processing, Transmission, Storage, Protection, and Use of Personal Information in Liberia" ¹. On 10 June 2025 the House of Representatives referred it unanimously to its Committee on Post and Telecommunications, with a report due within two weeks ¹.

The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications drafted the bill with Internews under an EU-funded media project ¹. The report says the bill would cover data controllers and processors, apply to data of residents of Liberia, the ECOWAS region or beyond, take precedence over other rules on personal data and set penalties for concealing breaches ¹. It links the bill to the 2010 ECOWAS Supplementary Act on Personal Data Protection ¹. This page found no record of enactment as of 21 October 2026 ¹.

The Liberia Immigration Service

LIS is a security agency under the Ministry of Justice. It enforces the Alien and Nationality Law, guards the borders and runs background checks for national identity documents ². It replaced the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization ².

Sources differ on its founding law. The Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC) says LIS was set up under the Liberia Immigration Service Act of 2015 ³. The LIS website says its regulations came out of the Immigration Act of 2016 ².

E-border pilot at Roberts International Airport

SomapaIT says it held three days of design workshops with LIS in Monrovia, in a post dated 28 April 2025 (provider page) ⁵. It lists customs, health, transport, the Liberia Civil Aviation Authority and the Ministry of Justice as taking part ⁵. The proposed technologies were real-time biometric verification, pre-arrival screening and interactive Advance Passenger Information ⁵. The post does not mention a contract or funding ⁵.

As reported by Bobby B. Addison in FrontPage Africa on 1 June 2026, LIS launched the E-Border Solution Foundation Pilot Project at a ceremony near Roberts International Airport ⁴. The system was due to run entry and exit management at the airport from 1 June 2026 as the first phase of a wider border programme ⁴. SOMAPA IT engineers were helping with installation, training and support ⁴. The report credits unnamed development partners and gives no contract terms, fees, funding amounts or data hosting arrangements ⁴.

Official findings on LIS

In December 2021 LACC published an institutional corruption risk assessment of LIS covering 2018/2019 to 2020/2021 ³. Its findings include the following ³.

• LIS had no database of resident foreign nationals with arrival dates, addresses or document expiry ³.
• There were no standing operational procedures for immigration officers during arrivals and departures at Roberts International Airport ³.
• Payments for visa on arrival, resident permits and re-entry were often made without official receipts, and officers produced no records accounting for border pass funds ³.
• Official resident permit fees were US$350 for non-Africans and US$300 for Africans, and applicants reported paying US$500 to US$1,000 ³.
• LACC recommended that the Liberia Revenue Authority handle all visa on arrival payments and that LIS build a database of foreign nationals ³.

What was not found

The LACC report contains no LIS management response ³. This page found no published General Auditing Commission audit of LIS or of the e-border system, and no published airport passenger security fee linked to a border data system ^3,4.