Citizenship and Immigration Committee on Nov. 19th, 2012

[Robert Bell]

That's a good point.

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

If the information is kept for 15 years, maybe you can help me understand. How do you think this information could be secured from hacking and other potential breaches, and after 15 years how would this information be disposed of? Do we just hit the delete button and it disappears? We do that with immigration backlogs—sorry, it's just a joke.

[Robert Bell]

I think you'll find that a lot of government information has a policy associated with how it's retained, and it's deleted automatically as opposed to having to wait for someone to push the delete button.

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

Thank you.

The Privacy Commissioner also raises questions around how the new eTA system would interact with Canada's other numerous existing traveller monitoring systems.

Do you have any thoughts on the integration of this new electronic visa with other information collected by government agencies?

[Robert Bell]

I think I should let someone else respond.

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

Yes.

If any of you have expertise in that area, we'd love to understand this.

[James Bissett]

I don't have the expertise in that area, but one comment I'd like to make is that when we're talking about personal information, what are we talking about? Certainly, I've seen the Australian form, and I presume ours would be somewhat similar. Basically all you're asking for is all of the information that's on your passport: your name, your address, your date of birth, your citizenship, the purpose of your visit, and whether you've ever had a criminal offence. There's not much more than that on the Australian one. Surely that's not information that you can't share with others, because everybody knows it or can get it by looking in the phone book, basically.

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

Unfortunately, Mr. Bissett, we don't know exactly what we're going to be asking for yet.

There is some concern regarding private information being shared with other entities and other nations, so we'll let that sit.

Do any of you have any recommendations on how the new system might be implemented to minimize the negative effect it could have on Canada's tourism industry?

Mr. Collacott.

[Martin Collacott]

As I indicated earlier, hopefully when it's all implemented and working properly it's going to be a very positive development. I don't have a lot of details on how it's worked in the United States, but I have seen the figure that 98% of people who have to get authorization to go to the United States are approved almost immediately. If you're not approved, you can at least discuss it with someone. That facilitates rapid clearance of the vast majority of individuals. As far as I can see, it would have a very positive effect on travel to Canada. There may be some people who just don't want to bother going through the process of getting the eTA. It can be done at the airport, but it's much faster if you do it online. Apparently, it won't take more than a few minutes. You can then print out the authorization and you're all set.

My guess is that it will facilitate rather than be an impediment. It might be an impediment for a few people who aren't online and then they have to do it at the airport, but on the whole, I think it will be a very positive development in terms of tourism to Canada, particularly from the United States.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you, sir.

Mr. Lamoureux.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think of the individual sitting there over in Europe who maybe has a brother or a sister that they want to visit here in Canada. The government tries to give the impression that it's no problem: just go to the Internet and plug in a few fields, and out will spit an approval within a matter of minutes.

I don't quite understand how you do criminal background checks without having access to European computer data banks, or the whole issue of misrepresentation and things of that nature, which are quite often done when a visiting visa is required.... There seems to be very little thought in terms of thinking through this whole process.

Mr. Bell, you really intrigued me when you indicated that the whole idea of biometrics needs to be incorporated. It supports what I'm thinking; that is, the government has this idea, and it has an agreement with the United States, and now it's feeling obligated to fulfill that agreement, so here's a budget, and let's kind of sneak this thing through here. We haven't really thought it through, but we're going to put it into this budget document, bring it in and pass it, and then we'll worry about it in terms of the regulations.

Here's my question for you. Do you believe that what we can see today, what we know today, is going to be effective in terms of screening out people? In other words, are there people outside of Canada who are still going to be able to come into Canada? How much of a barrier is this, really, unless we put in measures like biometrics? Is this going to prevent people who are really determined to come to Canada from coming to Canada from countries that don't require visas?

[Robert Bell]

Well, I guess there are two points to that, or many points.

First of all, I'm not on the government side, so I don't know what information they have in their databases, but I think you would find that the government has information on, say, human rights offenders who would be inadmissible. They would have information on fugitives who have been identified as people who are international but may be travelling on a Canadian passport. They would have some level of information, and more than just information based on Canadian activity and criminal activity. They would certainly know people who were refused refugees or people who were deported for criminality.

There's a set of information that's there, and this will provide value, but the bad guys are pretty smart. They will say, all right, how can we get around this name requirement? Can we get documents that are clean, that are issued by a country in another name? Can we assume an identity and get documents associated with that? That's the hole that I was addressing, and I think it's a significant hole. I think Canada has been kind of slow to respond to that. Other countries are faster to identify that as a concern and to start to implement biometric checks as well as name checks.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

It's fair if I draw the conclusion that there is a fundamental flaw by not addressing issues such as biometrics, and that maybe the sense of security isn't as secure as one might think without having a more diligent system to ensure that those types of issues are dealt with.

[Robert Bell]

I think that's true. Canada is starting to do this now, with the foreign residents program and the visa application programs. They're now looking at capturing face and fingerprint. It's a good step, but we haven't implemented any face recognition at the border to see if we can identify people who are coming in under good documents but with different identities. That's a step that should be taken. It should be taken prior to people getting on the plane.

But this eTA is a first step, and it's a good first step. That's really my point: it's a good step, but there's another step. It's interesting that each of the other speakers identified that as a hole or as an opportunity to enhance security—

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Opitz.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bell, you've been involved in implementing a lot of the biometric systems around the world. Can you take some time and describe to us your impressions of these and of how they're working in these various countries? There have to be differences in how these are working in the various nations. If you could elaborate on your experiences, that would probably be very helpful.

[Robert Bell]

One of the systems that I really like is the one that Australia implemented. Australia was an early mover in going to an electronic passport. They then moved to having automated gates for processing of passengers, so if you're now travelling into the country with your electronic passport, you put your passport in and it reads that; it captures your face and says, yes, you can come in. It's actually a little bit more complicated than that. There are two steps to it, but that's the essence of it.

Now they've made an arrangement with New Zealand, so the same smart gate is being applied in New Zealand as well as Australia. It provides for fast and easy access between two countries that are quite compatible, perhaps like Canada and the United States. The take-up on this automated system in New Zealand has been very significant. Now 70% to 80% of people are choosing to take the automated lane versus the traditional staffed lane. It allows for people to make their declarations—no agricultural goods, no money, no firearms, that kind of declaration—in an automated way. You can do it on the departure side rather than on the arrival side in a new country. On the departure side you often have more time to do this. So it certainly facilitates things for the traveller.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

It's NEXUS-like, in a way.

[Robert Bell]

It's NEXUS-like, but they chose a different route. They were going to go a NEXUS route and then they said, “Why don't we do something that works for everybody, not just for a few people who are going to pay $75 more?” So they took this route that builds on their electronic passport and the checks that you do to issue a passport.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

So in your experience, public perception is fairly high and positive about this.

[Robert Bell]

The uptake on this has been very positive. They're now expanding that to other traveller groups as well.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Did they have similar concerns to what we had prior to its implementation?

[Robert Bell]

I was working with the New Zealand people, and on the government side they saw only opportunity. I presented to the privacy commissioner and to other folks in New Zealand, and they saw that this would work and work well.

[Ted Opitz, Conservative, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

What were the comments of the New Zealand privacy commissioner about this?

[Robert Bell]

When she came into the meeting she didn't know much about face recognition and was concerned. We demonstrated that, first of all, it works. We just said, “Here's the database of the New Zealand passport holders. Let's see if we can find you.” There she was in a few seconds, so she said, “Oh, it works.” Then we talked about what we would do with this information and how we would keep it and how we would destroy it. At the end of that time, she was saying that she could support that.