The lost—and/or stolen, in many situations—replacement process is quite different from the credit card process. We have about 66,000 lost and stolen passports reported to us annually. Canadians domestically and around the world report lost or stolen passports. Often, it's that individuals have forgotten where they put them, have just misplaced them, or in a move have no idea which box they might be in, and they report them as lost.
Once that information reaches us in the passport program integrity branch, we automatically and immediately cancel the book. We also then, within a 24-hour period, notify our partners that the book has been declared lost or stolen and has been cancelled in our system.
We advise the CBSA daily of that information. We also advise the Canadian Police Information Centre, CPIC, which is managed by the RCMP so that all police organizations have access to that information. On a daily basis it's updated. It's subsequently updated from CPIC to Interpol, and that's through the RCMP linkage with Interpol. So around the world that information is passed along into the Interpol database.
This all happens immediately, within a day. As a result, when an individual misplaces a book and says, “I can't find my book, I must have lost it” and then comes back to us and says, “Sorry, I found it”, we advise them very clearly that they cannot use the book, because while we might be able to change the status of the book as being in the hands of the holder, all of our partners have already been informed that the book has been cancelled.
So they cannot use that book, or they will risk, if they do use it, being stopped at a border. Then they have to come back in and do a whole application for a new book.
Thank you.