Citizenship and Immigration Committee on June 19th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, meeting number 49, Tuesday, June 19, 2012.

This meeting is televised and is pursuant to Standing Order 108(2). We are studying “Standing on Guard for Thee: Ensuring that Canada's Immigration System is Secure”. In other words, it's a study of the security of the immigration system.

We have some guests who are appearing before us for the first hour. There are two groups. From Defence Research and Development Canada we have Pierre Meunier, who is the manager of surveillance, intelligence, and interdiction, Centre for Security Science. Good afternoon, Monsieur Meunier. From NextgenID Canada Inc. we have with us the senior vice-president of corporate and business development, Robert L. Bell. Good afternoon, Mr. Bell. Finally, also from NextgenID we have Ilan Arnon, vice-president of technology solutions. Good afternoon to you.

Each group will have up to ten minutes to make a presentation. Then members of the committee will follow with any questions they have, and I'm sure they will have some.

We will start with Monsieur Meunier.

[Pierre Meunier, Portfolio Manager, Surveillance, Intelligence and Interdiction, Centre for Security Science, Defence Research and Development Canada]

Thank you.

My name is Pierre Meunier, and I am the portfolio manager for surveillance, intelligence and interdiction at the Defence Research and Development Canada Centre for Security Science. This portfolio includes leading a community of practice on biometrics for national security.

I would like to provide you with an overview of who we are, what we do, and our relationship with federal government partners and the broader public safety and national security community. I will then provide you with a brief outline of some of the work we've invested in surrounding biometrics and what expertise we can contribute to support the exploration of biometrics technology in Canada.

The Centre for Security Science was established through a memorandum of understanding between the Department of National Defence and Public Safety Canada and is managed by the Defence Research and Development Canada special operating agency under the Department of National Defence.

The centre's mission is to pull requirements and priorities from the policy and operational communities and task the science and technology community and government, industry, and academia to develop solutions and provide advice that addresses these priorities.

The centre's staff includes scientists and engineers with a wide range of relevant experience who also possess expertise in areas such as capability-based planning, risk assessment, operational research, knowledge management, project management, community-building, and the application of scientific methodologies. They are therefore well positioned to provide trusted advice.

Over the years the Centre for Security Science has built a network of experts it can draw upon to serve the needs of the federal government and the broader public safety and security communities.

Through hundreds of projects and activities the centre and its partners have improved Canada's capabilities, ensuring that responders, planners, and policy- and decision-makers have access to the scientific and technical knowledge, tools, processes, and advice they need to protect Canada's interests.

As mentioned, one of my roles as the portfolio manager for surveillance, intelligence, and interdiction is to lead the Biometrics for National Security Community of Practice. It's important to note that as a portfolio manager, my role is to oversee projects and activities that foster collaborative efforts among experts. I'm not a leading-edge technical expert in any individual biometrics technology per se. However, my engineering and scientific background, combined with my interactions with national and international partners, has allowed me to gain an appreciation of how all the pieces of biometrics security fit together.

The Biometrics for the National Security Community of Practice brings together key stakeholders from federal departments and agencies responsible for national security, law enforcement, and immigration to discuss and study technical issues surrounding the use of biometrics technology in Canada, as well as to identify and address capability gaps.

To date this community has undertaken a number of biometrics studies looking at the performance of various technologies in different operational settings and examining privacy protective measures. In addition to these studies, experts have come together on a number of occasions to discuss issues and to raise awareness of what different departments are doing in this area and to share best practices. These discussions provide valuable knowledge and guidance for future investments to support the further development of this capability.

DRDC also has experts in systems engineering, including skills and knowledge in areas such as design testing, data management, and pattern recognition, all of which can be applied to understanding biometrics systems. Bringing this type of technical expertise to the table is what the Centre for Security Science can offer to support departments and agencies responsible for national security, law enforcement, and immigration in making decisions surrounding the technical requirements and performance factors of biometrics.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Bell.

[Robert Bell, Senior Vice-President, Corporate and Business Development, NextgenID Canada Inc.]

Mr. Chairman, and honourable committee members, we are pleased to appear before you on this important study examining the security of Canada's immigration system.

As someone who has been active in the field of biometrics for close to a decade, I will begin my remarks by noting how encouraging it is to see that biometrics are specifically included as one of the subject areas in your study. The realization that biometric identification technology has an integral role in immigration strategies is, in my view, significant.

NextgenID has worked with a number of governments at initial stages to help them determine if they should use biometrics, and if so, which biometrics they should use for passports and for border control. We have then participated in delivering technology and systems to help these countries implement face and fingerprint biometrics for passport, visa, and national ID issuance, as well as for border control.

My colleague Mr. Ilan Arnon has been the key technical person on many of these projects, and he will be able to answer your questions, given his first-hand experience on such projects around the world.

I'll begin by discussing examples of security gaps and some specific opportunities to deploy biometrics to strengthen our immigration system.

Deploying the right biometrics in the right applications will unquestionably both improve the security of our immigration system and expedite the clearance of legitimate travellers. Our work has been focused on systems for face recognition, fingerprints, and iris biometrics, which I would suggest are the only biometrics suited to the identification requirements associated with immigration and border control. Any system such as that seeks to verify identities and detect persons on a watch list.

I would like to address three specific security gaps that can be filled in part through the use of biometrics. One relates to visa issuance. The second relates to identity confirmation at the border. The third is a bad-guy lookout at the border, basically surveillance, looking for faces, and seeing if those people are on the bad-guy list.

With regard to visa issuance, the government is currently planning to capture fingerprints and face images during the application process. This isn't in place yet. This is just under initial contract at this point, as I'm sure you're aware. These fingerprints will be used as the biometric to confirm the identity of the traveller on arrival. So if you issue the visa, you make sure that the person who's coming to the border is actually the person he says he is.

This is a commendable first step. However, I would suggest three ways in which this could be improved at a relatively low incremental cost. Given that the face has been captured, facial recognition can be used to check if the applicant is on Canada's bad-guy list. Remember, for a known terrorist there will probably be a photograph, but it's unlikely there will be a fingerprint on file. A face can be captured upon arrival, and facial recognition can then be used to confirm the identity of the visa holder.

Review of a possible match can be performed immediately by an immigration officer with minimal training, unlike the case for fingerprints, for which you need an expert. If a potential face match is found, then fingerprints can be used as an alternate biometric during a secondary check. That's for visa issuance.

The second item is identity confirmation at the border.

When a person arrives at our border, he or she is either known or unknown. Known travellers have been pre-screened through the visa application program or the trusted traveller program. A trusted traveller simply has to confirm that he or she is the rightful holder of the passport. Iris recognition is used for trusted travellers, and as noted, fingerprint is planned for use for visa travellers. Canada is looking to extend participation in the trusted traveller program, CANPASS and NEXUS.

Beyond that, the advent of e-passports will make the use of biometrics to screen all travellers possible and practical. For example, in Australia, at all airports, the e-passport is read, and then a live image is captured and compared with that on the e-passport to determine the authenticity of the traveller. New Zealand and a number of European countries are moving in this direction as well, so they're automating their processes. This means that a good forged document will not be sufficient to gain entry into Canada.

This approach is also leading to automation, using e-gates at the border to quickly screen low-risk travellers and to enable the immigration officers to focus on the high-risk individuals. Canada should be planning to use this approach for e-passport holders from the U.S. and visa-waiver countries. Canada will start issuing e-passports this year. The other countries have been doing so for some time.

A following step would be to then effectively extend the border perimeter by conducting the same identity verification checks at the point of embarkation or before. Let's know who they are before they get on a plane that's coming to Canada.

The third item I want to deal with is what we call “bad-guy lookout”. Currently at our border control positions, there are video cameras deployed to capture and record the passage of travellers through the border. This provides a good record to support an investigation if there has been an incident at the border. However, it does not support facial recognition or watch-list checks that would allow a proactive response.

With the creation and maintenance of a watch list of persons of interest, these same cameras, perhaps with different camera lenses or positioning, could also act as face recognition cameras. The face images could be captured and compared against the watch list. If there is a potential match, this could be reviewed or adjudicated by the officer at the border post or at a central location, and a traveller could be sent to secondary inspection if required. If cameras are set up for identity verification, as mentioned earlier, then of course the same captured face could be used for a watch-list check.

I've been talking about face recognition. Why face? For these applications, face is the best biometric. In some cases it's the only biometric that would be effective. For identity verification at the border, the face is the only mandatory biometric on the e-passport, so it is the only biometric that can be used for the over 100 countries that will be issuing e-passports by the end of the year. For bad-guy lookouts, face is the only biometric for which there is likely an available image to verify against, and the only biometric that can be easily captured at a distance. Face recognition works well, and has been proven to do so in countries around the world for the applications recommended.

I guess the question is that we've talked about technology, but is there a problem? I think it is clear from the press—and I think you people would probably know better than I—that there are significant numbers of persons who commit crimes in Canada, are arrested, charged, tried, and convicted of these crimes, and then deported, only to come back under another identity to do that same thing again. On the CIC website there are five examples of people who have been deported for serious crimes, only to return—some three times, one 17 times—as repeat offenders. They come back, they commit crimes again, and they're removed from the country. This is a cost to society that can be largely eliminated with the proposed bad-guy lookout.

Mr. Chairman, let me close my remarks by noting that as someone who has worked in the industry for years, I am greatly encouraged when I see studies such as the one this committee is undertaking and initiatives such as Bill C-31, which expressly authorizes taking biometrics and enabling what is in effect the bad-guy lookout system at the border. What categories of person should be included in such a bad-guy database is a policy decision for government to make, but it is important for you that you appreciate how the technology itself supports such efforts.

Canada is clearly moving towards the screening and security approach in the Canada-U.S. border agreement and in our recent adherence to the five-party conference—Canada, the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia—on biometric data sharing to prevent immigration fraud. Biometrics is a technology that can significantly enhance the security of our immigration and border systems, while also expediting the clearance of legitimate travellers.

I hope these opening remarks have been of assistance. I look forward to any questions you may have on the subject.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, Mr. Bell and Mr. Meunier. Your comments have been helpful. We appreciate you bringing in your expertise to help us with this report in order for us to give some comments to the House of Commons.

The first person to ask you questions is Mr. Menegakis.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to begin by thanking you for being here and testifying before us today.

This, as you can well appreciate, is a very important study for us, and a very important initiative. We feel, as a government, and let me just say as a Parliament, that it is our responsibility to ensure the safety of our Canadian citizens. Certainly it is critically important for us to identify individuals prior to their entering our country, living in our neighbourhoods, going to school with our kids, and shopping where we shop. It really has become an increasing concern, given the creative ways those who would participate in illicit activity can find to enter our country—by many accounts one of the most welcoming countries in the world in which to live.

I have a number of questions for you. First, in your opinion, under our current system how successful has Canada been at preventing criminals from entering our borders from source countries?

My questions are to all of you. I wouldn't mind hearing from all or some, as you wish.

[Robert Bell]

I think that's sort of a government question.

[Pierre Meunier]

I'm afraid I don't have an answer to that. It's not appropriate for me to comment. We're focusing on the technology aspects that could be brought to bear on this in the future or in the near future; we're not looking at the past performance issues.

[Robert Bell]

The thought I have is that we do a lot of work around the world, and I see each country struggling with how to make our borders stronger. As I speak with people, they have countless examples of gaps in their system, just as I talked about here. I think everybody around the world is struggling to tighten those. Some are further ahead than others.

We don't carefully screen the people who are coming in from a face recognition point of view. I think one can also look at exit controls. I don't think we have any exit controls. So part of what we'll get to in the “Beyond the Borders” initiative, at least on the U.S. border, is some exit control as well.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

Did you want to add anything, Mr. Arnon, or are you okay with that?

[IIan Arnon, Vice-President, Technology Solutions, NextgenID Canada Inc.]

The only thing I could add, to follow up on what Robert just said, is that we don't do anything at the moment to capture any kind of biometric, and really it's a simple process. Someone has to cooperatively look at a camera, let's say, to capture a simple image, which everyone knows how to do. It's simpler than a fingerprint. A fingerprint's the next step, maybe, but even just to capture a facial image....

As Bob mentioned in his remarks, there is a camera currently at every immigration desk. It's not being used to capture faces; it's more just to surveil the area.

So there are some simple things that can be done to take a big step in enhancing the feasibility of biometrics.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

On the issue of biometrics, we've heard from a number of witnesses here on this committee, and it's been described by several as a 21st-century identification tool. It seems to be pretty accurate, and a lot better than the current system that we have now.

Do you think biometrics should be collected only for temporary resident visas, or should they be used for everyone entering Canada? What are your thoughts on that?

We can start with you, if you like, Mr. Meunier, and then we can continue.

[Pierre Meunier]

I certainly believe the technology has improved to the point where it can handle large volumes. The accuracy keeps improving. The technology is just at that stage now where it's ready for use, and other countries have realized that.

I think we are getting into that direction. I look at what Citizenship and Immigration Canada is planning in the years ahead, and I think biometrics will go a long way in helping.

[Robert Bell]

One of the things I see as we've been going through helping people move to an e-passport is that once you have e-passports, you place the passport on the reader and take the picture, and you have confirmed the identity. Then when I'm coming across the border, you don't have to ask me all these skill-testing questions to see if I really am the person I am. I've proven it.

I think I'd be happier, as a person, if I just did that and were able to go through. It leads, then, to automating the border such that low-risk passengers and travellers can go through the border easily, without even going through a staff location.

If you looked at biometrics for everybody, you'd want to do it so that it was facilitating and speeding up the process rather than for a security point of view. Those are the two things we end up doing with biometrics: facilitation and enhancing security. You get both.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Arnon, do you care to add something?

[IIan Arnon]

In any immigration area, airports are similar. There is a lot of capture of imagery through surveillance cameras. And while those images are not necessarily of the quality needed for biometrics or facial recognition, we are capturing a lot of images. Just to go the small extra step of capturing an image that we know is going to be usable for biometrics will serve to add a lot of security.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

You have about 20 seconds. You can say goodbye.

[Costas Menegakis, Conservative, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

We'll go to Ms. Sims.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for your presentations today.

As you know, with respect to biometrics, we have expressed some concerns in the past with regard to privacy issues, and they still remain a major concern for us. One of the documents we asked the government to provide for us, and I'm sure my colleagues remember, was a privacy impact statement for Bill C-31. I think we are still waiting for that, in one way or another. It would be good to get a copy of that report, even though Bill C-31 has passed us by.

When we met with Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, this is what she had to say:

As the honourable members certainly know, the Privacy Act imposes obligations whenever the federal government gathers personal information. Federal agencies must ensure certain safeguards, must limit secondary use, and must list their data holdings publicly, irrespective of the citizenship of the individuals involved. Also, should any legislative or regulatory changes be made to the immigration system, I would expect to receive detailed privacy impact assessments from the appropriate institution.

We know that the Senate has begun its hearings on Bill C-31. And we're certainly hoping that at least in that other place they will be provided with the privacy impact assessments as they are going through the hearings, even though we didn't have them.

I have brief questions, but I'm going to give them to you a couple at a time.

When the government outsources the collection of biometric data to private companies, such as NextgenID, what is done to ensure that Canada's privacy laws are being respected?

Second, how is the data retained and stored, and how many people would have access to it?

[Robert Bell]

Let's go back to the preamble, where you were talking about the Privacy Commissioner.

It is an essential component in any country we go into that we and our customer work with the privacy commissioner to make sure we are meeting the laws of the country, so that what you're expecting regarding the implementation of biometrics and what she's asking for are consistent with what we see elsewhere.

When we put a biometric system in place, we provide the system but the government owns the data. We really separate the technology for collecting the data from the data itself. The government usually is the one that has access to the data, manages the data, and sets the policies for retaining and expunging the data. It is really not a private contractor's role, and our role would be similar to any other contractor's. It is really our customer's role.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

So basically you're saying that has nothing to do with you because you only provide the technology. It's the government that—

[Robert Bell]

It's the owner of the system, the operator of the system, who I think in this case would certainly be the CBSA, someone who's charged with the security at the border.

[Jinny Sims, NDP, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Okay. Thank you.

I'm going to ask you the next question, and you may have a similar answer, so I'm prepared for that. Which internal and external sources could this information be used by or disclosed to?

[Robert Bell]

What we have seen is the government's put in place a very solid firewall around the information they're gathering and controlling access to.