Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2012

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

No, my colleague can finish.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

So no one's saying this should be done in isolation, and you both made the point very well that it should be done with human intelligence as well.

Given the NEXUS that you like to use, Admiral, between Canada and the United States, and given that together we're more able to protect against terrorism than if we try to do this in silos, then how would you put biometrics as part of that NEXUS?

And, please, maybe we'll leave a minute or two for my colleague.

[RAdm Donald Loren]

I'll do my best.

When I was growing up, my father refused to buy a colour TV until they perfected it. It's not about the technology. Who cares about the technology? Moore's law tells us that the technology is going to change in two years anyway. It's about what we're trying to do with the technology. What is the application? What are the processes that we want to employ?

Why would I ever—no offence—want to start a biometric file on anyone? I'm not sure what good that does. Again, I'm not an expert, but I do know that each of our governments has some sort of certification and documentation of who we're supposed to be, and we're just moving forward so that somehow, in today's state-of-the-art technology, it's real easy for me to put my photograph on somebody else's passport. So now I want to take advantage of the state-of-the-art technology that exists. So to sit there and say, “That is my fingerprint, my iris, my retinal scan”....

When you get into law enforcement, then we have uses for DNA samples. But now that gets very touchy, because that's intrusive. That requires giving a sample. It gets complicated. But that's law enforcement.

You need to know what you want to do with the technology. That's the critical factor, I believe.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Once you know, once you want to keep out terrorists, then you would say—you were just pointing to your passport, and you were showing it up to the committee—that it would be a useful device, among other tools, to help us protect ourselves from the terrorists?

[RAdm Donald Loren]

I believe so.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Okay.

Costas?

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I think we're done, are we not?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

You have 30 seconds.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

I have 30 seconds? Okay.

Let me use my time, then, to thank you for coming here. It's always a pleasure to have you with us. This is a study on security that we're doing, so this information, this testimony, is very useful to us.

Our goal, of course, is to ensure the safety of Canadian citizens. Before we allow someone into the country, we want to identify who they are. Any tool we can use to help us in that identification process better protects Canadian society. Quite often people come here with no documentation. I'm sure you've had those experiences.

I had only the 30 seconds, so I will just say a big thank you once again before we move on to the next member here.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

Mr. Choquette, you have five minutes.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

Border security is a compelling and important issue. However, I wanted to mention that, in Drummondville, in my riding, Drummond, many immigrants come to see me and raise other points that are also very important, such as better learning recognition and better access to the labour market. Those are elements that would facilitate integration into Canadian society. I hope that your committee will soon study those issues. They also constitute an urgent need.

As for today's topic, Mr. Platsis, you mentioned during your previous appearance before the committee that biometric information was not really useful unless it was cross-checked against a list, a database. A number of witnesses have brought up various problems with security and no-fly lists—be they internal or shared by several countries—when it comes to both the risks of mistaken identity and the difficulty in changing those lists in case of errors.

Is that a concern for you and do you have any potential solutions to recommend?

[George Platsis]

Thank you.

Concerning the comment about faulty information—I think I somewhat touched on this in my opening statement—we need to have some sort of mechanism, and it may be outside the bounds of this study, whereby we can verify our own information. In anything in life, it would be not prudent to take just one source and assume that it should be “the source”. You have crossing vectors and nexuses that create a sounder picture. This comes back to the question of sound information.

Again, this may be outside the purview of this particular study, but reviewing things, for example, such as how the RCMP can manage things under the Security Offences Act, because they are the lead agency for national security, or how CSIS, under sections 12 through 17, or it might be section 18...how they collect information and what they do....

It goes back to what I was talking to Ms. Freeman about. We need to break down these institutional silos. We can't rely just on one picture; we can't rely just on one statement. With our membership in the Five Eyes, we need to be able to do something from a Canadian perspective that allows us to further this information sharing. Otherwise, every other country has its own interests—I say this respectfully of my colleague, whom I admire very much—as Canada has its own interests, and unless we can take this from a Canadian vantage point, we risk being handed information that is not necessarily in our own best interests. It may be—you would like to believe that your partners and allies are looking out for you—but at the end of the day, everyone is going to be looking out for their own interests.

I will only comment on a very quick case, as an example that is in open source, even though it wasn't detailed—it came out of the U.K.—in which the U.S. was afraid to share information about a Mumbai-style attack happening inside the U.K. for fear that their own U.S.-interest sources might be compromised in the process.

We have our departmental institutional silos and then we have our international silos. We need to be more comfortable working together, keeping in mind that if we want the best decisions for Canada, they need to be taken from a Canadian vantage point, with a Canadian verification and a Canadian assurance.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

You have 45 seconds.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

I think you talked earlier about the danger of having certain kinds of information, about the freedom of individuals and the sacrifice of that freedom.

Even if biometrics became the norm, I think it would be important to ensure good transparency so that people's rights and privacy are not infringed upon. You already mentioned that it was important to make sure all that information is not jeopardizing anyone's privacy. So we need to find processes to ensure very good transparency.

I will let Mr. Platsis answer this. Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

I'll have to just.... I'm sorry.

[RAdm Donald Loren]

Actually, I am going to answer that question.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Kevin Lamoureux]

No, actually, we don't have any time. We will have to go to Ms. James, and Ms. James can determine whether or not she wants to repeat the question.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank you both for being here. I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to have witnesses actually speak to the purpose of the study. The questions we are discussing in this last hour are all related to the study. I really appreciate both of you being here and waking me up somewhat.

I am going to ask a question straight out. Does the United States collect biometrics on all of its citizens?

[RAdm Donald Loren]

Absolutely not. There are certain categories, such as the military, for which DNA is collected, but—

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

But for biometrics, there's not a file on every American?

[RAdm Donald Loren]

Absolutely not.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

That's good to know. I'm not planning to move there any time soon, but I will let you know that neither will Canada have one. The purpose of the biometrics we are moving to is for foreign nationals only.

As you have stated, there is no use collecting biometrics unless there is a real purpose for it. The purpose we are implementing is so that “who applies is who arrives”, so that we can verify that at both ends.

I am going to ask a question. You held up a fake passport and said you can change the picture very easily. How easily can someone change their fingerprint?

I am questioning this because I have heard in other sessions someone saying that biometrics is not foolproof and that it is easy to change your facial structure and easy to change your fingerprints. Is it easier than changing a document, such as taking one person's photo and putting it on another person's passport?

[RAdm Donald Loren]

I'm not an expert in this. I'm going to give you an opinion, a personal opinion. I would venture to say that it's probably not as easy as motion pictures might make it out to be, but I would venture to say that it perhaps is possible. I'd venture to say that in 2012 it's probably more possible than it was in 1950, and that in 2020 it may very well be easier than it is in 2012. That's why we go through, in the United States...is it thumbprint, index finger, five-print, ten-print...? We constantly evolve—

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I was waiting for that word—

[RAdm Donald Loren]

Yes.