Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 30th, 2012

[C/Supt Chuck Walker]

I would say you've identified the significant challenge with respect to the sharing of information, be it biometric or otherwise. Agreements are essential, and they have to be put in place with Canadian values in mind with regard to privacy and who gets to access the information. I don't know what I could provide you in the way of definite assurances. The Canadian Police Information Centre exchanges biographical information with the United States and their NCIC system, which is their equivalent to our CPIC, so there are controls in place to ensure that information goes where it is intended to go and no further. However, our countries do not audit each other. That's the current arrangement with the biographical exchange of information.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

The reason I asked the question was that Mr. Linklater said that if the information were released to certain jurisdictions there might be problems for the individuals.

I guess I'll leave it. After today if you have more information, you could provide it to the committee.

I agree with Ms. Sims. We value our privacy, whether it be for Canadians or for others wanting to become Canadians, and we worry about these sorts of things.

Madam Groguhé.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to know to what extent biometrics has decreased the number of entries with a false identity in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Could you give us figures for those countries? If you don't have them now, could you send us the information later?

[Alain Desruisseaux]

I don't have those statistics.

We have a few statistics. I don't have them with me right now, but we could send them to the committee.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Okay.

In general, are these numbers fairly high? Could you give us a rough idea?

[Alain Desruisseaux]

I saw the reports on a few cases. The emphasis was not on how many, but their importance. In some cases, we're talking about dangerous criminals and, in others, systematic and repeated fraud. So it's sort of like doing a background check. Regardless, we will see what statistics are available.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

In other words, more stress is being put on the qualitative aspects than on the quantitative ones.

[Alain Desruisseaux]

Exactly.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

How many people have you intercepted entering Canada using a false identity and to what extent will biometrics close the gaps?

[Marie Estabrooks]

I don't have the exact statistics on how many people we have intercepted. But as we build our databases and know more people, biometrics will allow the Border Services Agency to identify and fix an identity to a person. It's a tremendous tool to be able to identify who a person is, or who they've applied as in the past.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

If I understand your answer correctly, there aren't any specific measures regarding these false identities at the moment.

[Marie Estabrooks]

I could come back to the committee with better statistics. I don't have them in front of me.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

Okay.

I'll now let my colleague Alain Giguère take over.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

My question concerns the databases that will be used to populate your registry. I know that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are the point of contact with Interpol. When people's fingerprints are taken, are they compared to those in the Interpol database?

[C/Supt Chuck Walker]

I would have to get you that answer. My sense is that it is done on a case-by-case basis and on the merits of the investigational question. In other words, there's no system in place that automatically sends information of that nature back and forth.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Very well.

Agreements have been struck with a certain number of countries, including the U.S.A., the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. But they are all members of the Echelon network. Will that network's databases be integrated into the verification base?

[C/Supt Chuck Walker]

There are no plans to do that at this point. The conversations occurring between those countries now are very much around the standards of the information, to ensure that similar standards are being used when building the technical solutions. It provides for the opportunity to—

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

It isn't technical. I'll give you a very clear example. Will the British MI6 databases be included and available for verification purposes? MI6 is part of Echelon.

[C/Supt Chuck Walker]

I'm not aware of any plans to do that at this time.

[Alain Giguère, NDP, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Can you give me an answer about the Interpol and Echelon databases? I'll remind you that the RCMP is the point of contact with those two entities. Echelon and Interpol go through the RCMP. At the time, it took two or three weeks, but now, thanks to computers, you can get it in seven minutes. I would have liked this to have been the case at the time. It would have been very helpful to me.

What happens once this information is received? The Echelon network verifies not only the criminal records of individuals, but also their political identity. In that context, the information…

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We're out of time I'm afraid. You're on the list for another round.

Mr. Weston.

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

Thanks, Chair.

As we consider the concerns about letting private information get into the hands of countries that might not respect the values of the government, I'm thinking those are countries where we wouldn't have the opportunity to be interviewing people like you in the positions of authority that you are in, and we appreciate you being here this morning. Thank you.

My colleague, Mr. Opitz, mentioned the impact of the NEXUS program. Just yesterday I was in contact with another analogous program, which to quote you, Mr. Linklater, ensures that the person who arrives is the person who applied. In this program a photo must be gotten and a card must be provided and the card must be presented at the beginning of the event. The event is under 14 soccer in Ontario, and at a certain level, the children have to go and get themselves carded and present the card.

My point is that it's fair to say that although we do have concerns about privacy, we all have concerns about privacy, the impact of biometrics is going well beyond immigration such as we're considering today.

I would like to get back to this question about information getting into the hands of sovereign governments over which we have no control, and I wonder if you could give us some examples of specific protections in addition to what you've already said such that we don't imagine....

For instance, the information here goes to the Government of Iran. The people who I serve in the riding I represent, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, would be very concerned about that and I'm sure there are other people who would have similar concerns.

[Les Linklater]

Essentially, we need to be very careful that we don't share systematic information that could pose a problem to specific individuals, such as in the case you've cited.

When we do collect the biometrics we will be looking to share, as we said, about the criminal history and previous immigration history in Canada, and with trusted partners.

I think what's going to be important about the sharing with partners is to understand that it's not going to be that holus-bolus all information on a file will be pushed out proactively, systematically, to our partners, but where we are sharing the fingerprint, for example, if there's a match then at that point it would trigger a case-by-case conversation with the partner to ensure that we were getting only the relevant information that would be material to a decision that we would make for immigration or law enforcement purposes. So we wouldn't say in the first instance—and bear with me—say Joe Bloggs' date of birth XYZ coming from country Z with these fingerprints. We would send the fingerprints, and if there's a match we would go back and say what sort of adverse information do you have without actually moving beyond into more detailed information.

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

Can I just state the obvious that we wouldn't be sharing information with a government such as the Government of Iran.

[Les Linklater]

Correct.