The Role of Information Bureaus and the Tracing Agency in Connecting Families

War tears apart more than lives – it tears apart families. A soldier captured on the front line, a civilian interned in an occupied territory, a refugee displaced across borders: for each of them, there is a family somewhere waiting for a word, a sign, any confirmation that their loved one is alive. International humanitarian law (IHL) does not treat this anguish as an unavoidable side effect of conflict. Instead, the 1949 Geneva Conventions built a formal, legally binding system – the National Information Bureaus and the Central Tracing Agency – specifically designed to ensure that information about protected persons flows from the battlefield to their families, even in the middle of war.

The legal foundation: what the Geneva Conventions require 🔗

The Geneva Conventions place a clear obligation on every party to an international armed conflict: you must account for the people who fall into your hands. This obligation is not left to discretion or goodwill. Article 122 of the Third Geneva Convention (GC III) and Articles 136 and 140 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV) together create a structured two-tier mechanism for collecting and transmitting that information. The first tier is domestic – each party to the conflict must set up a National Information Bureau (NIB). The second tier is international – a Central Information Agency sits at the top of the system, receiving data from all NIBs and redistributing it to the relevant parties and families.

As the ICRC has clarified, these obligations are part of a wider framework of IHL rules that protect separated families and those who go missing or die in armed conflict. The system is not simply about bureaucratic record-keeping – it is about preventing people from disappearing without trace, and about upholding the right of every family to know the fate of its members.

National Information Bureaus: the first point of collection 🔗

Each state party to an armed conflict must establish at least one NIB as soon as hostilities begin. In practice, states are expected to prepare for this even in peacetime, putting in place standard forms, operating procedures, and case management systems so that the machinery is ready from the moment war starts.

Who does the NIB cover? 🔗

The NIB handles information about protected persons in the hands of the party to which it belongs – that is, persons from the opposing side or from neutral states who are under that party’s control. Under GC III, this covers prisoners of war (POWs). Under GC IV, it extends to protected civilians: those kept in custody for more than two weeks, subjected to assigned residence, or interned. A state may set up one NIB to handle both categories or two separate bodies, though the ICRC recommends a unified approach to avoid duplication or gaps in coverage.

What information must the NIB collect? 🔗

Articles 122 (GC III) and 138 (GC IV) specify minimum information the NIB must gather and transmit for every protected person. This includes the individual’s full name, place and date of birth, nationality, last place of residence, distinguishing features, the name of their father and the maiden name of their mother. Beyond identity, the NIB must record the date, place, and nature of the action taken (such as capture, internment, or transfer), the address to which correspondence can be sent, and the name and address of the next of kin to be notified. For seriously ill or wounded internees, Article 138(2) of GC IV requires that updates on health status be sent regularly – ideally every week.

The NIB must also collect and forward death certificates, certified lists of the dead, and documents of personal or sentimental value belonging to protected persons, ensuring that even in death, a person’s record and dignity are preserved and communicated to their family.

Occupying the enemy’s territory: branch offices 🔗

When a state occupies territory belonging to the opposing party, its NIB must maintain a branch office in that occupied territory. This is because protected civilians in occupied areas – who may be detained, placed under assigned residence, or otherwise controlled by the occupying power – also generate information that must be captured and transmitted. Without a local presence, that data could easily be lost.

The Central Information Agency and the ICRC’s Central Tracing Agency 🔗

Once NIBs collect information, they do not send it directly to families or to the opposing state – they channel it through the Central Information Agency. Article 123 of GC III provides for a Central Prisoners of War Information Agency, and Article 140 of GC IV creates a parallel Central Information Agency for protected civilians. In both cases, the Conventions specify that this agency should be established in a neutral country. Crucially, the Conventions do not automatically assign these tasks to the ICRC – they merely allow the ICRC to propose itself for the role. In practice, every agency established under the 1949 Conventions has operated under ICRC auspices, and today this role is performed by the ICRC’s permanent institution: the Central Tracing Agency (CTA), based in Geneva.

The CTA’s historical roots 🔗

The CTA’s origins go back to 1870, when the ICRC opened a tracing agency during the Franco-Prussian War. Subsequent agencies were created for each major conflict – the Belgrade Agency during the Balkan Wars, and the International Prisoners of War Agency during World War I. The formal legal basis for a permanent central agency was first established in the 1929 Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War and was comprehensively reaffirmed in the 1949 Conventions. By the time of World War II, capture cards distributed to POWs allowed them to register directly with the tracing agency, giving each prisoner a documented record and initiating contact with their family. The modern CTA is the institutional heir of this entire history.

What the CTA does 🔗

The CTA receives information from all NIBs involved in a conflict and becomes the central repository of records on protected persons. It then transmits this information in two directions: to the state concerned (the home state of the protected person) and, through that state or directly where necessary, to the families. For more than 150 years, the CTA has – together with National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies – been at the heart of efforts to keep families together, search for the missing, protect the dignity of the dead, and ensure that the rights of families are addressed.

Beyond receiving and forwarding data, the CTA carries out five principal activities. It maintains and restores family links when normal communication channels are blocked. It operates a Red Cross Messages (RCM) system – standardised family correspondence forms used when postal services are disrupted. It conducts tracing activities to locate missing persons. It assists with family reunification. And it issues ICRC travel documents to displaced persons who lack valid identity papers. All of these activities use standard forms prescribed by or consistent with the Geneva Conventions, ensuring uniformity and reliability across conflict zones.

The CTA in practice: the Russia-Ukraine conflict 🔗

When the international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine began, the CTA activated a dedicated National Information Bureau for the conflict – the first time it had done so since the Gulf Wars. This activation illustrates that the NIB-CTA system is not merely a historical or theoretical construct. It is a living mechanism that states and the ICRC are expected to operationalise when conflict breaks out, with real consequences for thousands of families seeking information about captured soldiers or interned civilians.

The flow of information: how the system works together 🔗

To understand the system concretely, consider its step-by-step operation. When a state captures a prisoner of war or interns a civilian, its military or civil authorities record that person’s details according to the standard checklist in the Conventions. That information is sent to the state’s NIB. The NIB consolidates and processes the data and transmits it to the CTA. The CTA forwards the information to the opposing state’s authorities (and ultimately to the family) and also to the Protecting Power if one has been appointed. All correspondence and lists exchanged through this chain are exempt from postal dues under both GC III and GC IV, removing any financial barrier to information flow.

The system also operates in reverse: families who have not heard from a missing relative can approach their National Red Cross or Red Crescent Society or the ICRC directly, initiating a tracing request. The CTA then queries the relevant NIBs and its own records. IHL contains a comprehensive set of rules to prevent family separation and keep people from going missing – and this two-way flow of information is central to making those rules effective.

Scope: beyond prisoners of war 🔗

A common misconception is that this system only benefits soldiers. In reality, GC IV ensures that the CTA can notify the families of civilian internees and the countries concerned, regardless of nationality. This includes foreign nationals in occupied territory, stateless persons, refugees, and – under Article 73 of Additional Protocol I – those who were already considered stateless or refugees before hostilities began. The NIB and CTA framework thus casts a wide protective net, designed to leave no category of protected person unaccounted for.

For non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) – civil wars, internal disturbances – the formal NIB obligation does not apply in the same way, because GC III and GC IV govern international conflicts between states. However, customary IHL Rule 117 still requires every party to take all feasible measures to account for persons reported missing, and the CTA continues to operate in NIACs based on the ICRC’s right of initiative under Common Article 3.

Data protection and confidentiality 🔗

Processing personal data about potentially thousands of individuals raises serious privacy concerns. The ICRC has noted that domestic data protection laws must be interpreted so as to allow information transmission to the CTA – the public interest in preventing disappearances and the vital interest of the protected person in not going missing provide the legal basis for processing. NIBs are expected to have secure systems, standard operating procedures, and clear protocols for data confidentiality. The goal is not to circulate personal information widely, but to get it precisely to those who need it: the family and the home state.

Why this matters: the humanitarian core of IHL 🔗

The NIB and CTA system reflects one of the deepest commitments of the Geneva Conventions: that war does not strip individuals of their identity or their families of the right to know their fate. As IHL recognises, no matter how a person came to be in an enemy’s hands, their humanity and dignity must be preserved. Knowing whether a captured soldier is alive, or where an interned civilian is being held, is not a privilege – it is a right. The information bureau and tracing agency system is the practical legal architecture built to deliver that right, even across enemy lines, even in the chaos of active conflict.

What do you think? Given that parties to a conflict are required to set up National Information Bureaus even before war begins, how realistic is it for states to be genuinely prepared when hostilities break out unexpectedly? And as armed conflicts increasingly involve non-state actors who are not bound by the same treaty obligations, how should the international community strengthen accountability mechanisms to ensure that missing persons are still accounted for?

References

1. https://www.icrc.org/en/document/geneva-conventions-1949-additional-protocols
2. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/article-140/commentary/2025
3. https://international-review.icrc.org/articles/reports-and-documents-note-on-the-national-information-bureau-929
4. https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/central-tracing-agency/
5. https://blogs.icrc.org/cross-files/research-guide-agency/
6. https://unipd-centrodirittiumani.it/en/topics/moral-suffering-and-protection-of-prisoners-of-war-the-central-tracing-agency-from-the-franco-prussian-war-to-the-present
7. https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2022/04/11/separated-missing-dead-international-armed-conflicts/
8. https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2024/02/29/the-transmission-of-information-by-the-icrc-s-central-tracing-agency-in-international-armed-conflicts/
9. https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2022/10/06/third-country-nationals-international-armed-conflict/
10. https://blogs.icrc.org/law-and-policy/2022/05/19/belligerents-status-protection-geneva-conventions/