Evidence of meeting #50 for Citizenship and Immigration in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was using.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:10 a.m.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
In this study you've done, have there been any indications of false positives or false negatives?
My last question is, again referring to the DFATD document, about function creep. One of the concerns that DFATD raised was that in future this information could be used for something beyond its original purpose. Is that something you've also looked at?
9:10 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Using this information beyond its original purposes is certainly not something I've thought of, or that my minister has instructed me to think of. It's not the issue of today. We're here today to talk to you about legislation being put forward to do exactly what the legislation is being put forward to do. We have no intention, at this time, of doing anything more with that information.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to the witnesses.
I am in favour of what you're doing in principle. I just have some questions or possible concerns about the privacy aspects.
First of all, in terms of the scope of the application, mention was made about potentially including individuals who make “a claim, application or request”. That seems very broad. To whom is this going to apply? What categories of applicants? Might that change over the future because that clause seems to give a green light to anybody?
9:10 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.
It currently applies to people making a temporary resident visa application from the 29 countries and one territory, or people making student and work permit applications from those countries. The intention through this bill is to give the government the authority to broaden that application to all these applicants and to permanent residents. The intention is not to do any more with it, but we take fingerprints as we currently do from people making refugee asylum claims and from refugees we are resettling from overseas. Further detail on that would be provided in the regulations that will be passed before 2018-19. Regulations that currently exist list the existing countries. Those will be updated to broaden the scope.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
If information is required on an individual applying to be a permanent resident, and if the application is successful, then I suppose the individual is then a citizen. Is all this information on fingerprints retained by the RCMP? Is that kept there? I'm not sure it's appropriate for Canadian citizens to be subject to that unless there's some reason.
9:10 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
As we currently do, it would continue to be our plan to delete any biometric information on any of our clients as soon as they become a citizen.
9:10 a.m.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Okay, good.
Has there ever been a breach in any of your application centres in terms of the CIC requirements to delete, or other kinds of requirements?
9:15 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
There has been no such thing. There are 180 locations around the world. We audit those locations. There are stringent procedures they follow. There are small things that happen, the Wi-Fi will go out for a few hours or what have you, but there's been no breach of personal information.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Is all of this process going to be applied to people coming to Canada from the United States?
9:15 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
For an American citizen coming here to visit, no. For an American citizen who wants to become a permanent resident of Canada, yes.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON
Okay.
Does that mean it's not going to be applied to any visa exempt countries, like, let's say, the U.K. as well as the U.S.?
9:15 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
For citizens of the U.K. coming here to visit their sister, no, they do not have to hand over biometrics, just as we do not have to hand over biometrics to them.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Thank you, Chair.
It's important for Canada to maintain abreast of technology and of the security measures of our peer countries.
My question has to deal with the five partner countries. Do we all have the same biometric requirements for those 29 countries and one territory? Are there differences in how we go about doing this? The reason I'm asking this is, what happens to the countries that are not on Canada's 29-country list? How do we screen those?
9:15 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
The United States, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand are all now using biometrics in their immigration screening in their border management programs. There are differences in how they do that given different contexts, different migration patterns. Some are islands, some have land borders, some have large international airports, and some have smaller international airports. There are differences in the details. New Zealand is taking prints from refugee applicants and certain other applicants and are only now, I think, moving to using biometrics to screen visa applicants. Australia is about where we are. The United States takes fingerprints from more people.
For example, in reference to the earlier question, they would fingerprint someone from the U.K. who is coming just temporarily to visit. That is not our plan. There are small differences among the countries but all of those countries are now using biometrics in one way or another to screen immigration applicants, either before they leave or on arrival. The United States, the U.K., and Australia are fingerprinting most of those 29 countries and one territory. It's a general statement, but we're talking about 30 different places. Our Five Country Conference partners, most of the time, would be fingerprinting most people coming from the 29 countries and one territory, yes.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
I recently had experience travelling through Japan and biometrics was required of me. Is there a reciprocal agreement among countries outside of those five countries that have this biometric collection requirement?
9:15 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
I haven't seen much in the way of reciprocity in this area. It's a really mixed bag around the world. We had someone on staff take a look at it and they came up with over 70. I'm sure we could probably say a slightly higher number by now. Every day, every month, every year, more and more countries are using it. They use it in different ways. The two models, I suppose, would be taking fingerprints from someone applying in the first instance, and then screening those prints before a visa has been issued, so before someone is able to board a plane to come to your country.
Another model would be to do that but for other populations, as the Japanese do for Canadians, to take a fingerprint when someone arrives. That's perhaps less effective because the person would already be on our soil at that point and the preference is to screen at the perimeter. Also, enrolling on arrival takes up space and time at airports and we want those airports to be as fluid and efficient as possible and to make sure that arrivals are facilitated upon arrival.
No, we haven't seen reciprocity, so to speak, in the application of the fingerprints. It is becoming the norm so most people are becoming used to it. As Canadians we are lucky. There are many places in the world where we can travel without being subject to this in any way. Certain other nationalities are quite used to it, because for countries like Japan, for countries like the United States, very few people are exempted from the application of it.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Just as a way of comparison between the pre-biometric collection era and now, how have we facilitated the processing of a person at a border? I'm thinking more in terms of how this affects our tourism business, our trade industry. In some countries you have to stand in a lineup for easily 40 to 50 minutes. Give me a sense of what the efficiency is in terms of processing plane loads of people coming into our borders.
9:20 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
We hope there will be efficiencies. That's part of the plan. To get those efficiencies, the foundation is to have that fingerprint on file. When you are screening millions of application forms using names, dates of birth, in certain countries certain surnames are shared by noticeable percentages of their populations. Certain countries are issuing travel documents that aren't up to modern standards. You have language barriers in these cases. It can take some time to confirm someone's identity. Fingerprints clean that up for you and make it more efficient.
Then on arrival there are many things a border service officer has to do in real time as 400 or 500 people get off a large plane. One of the primary ones, I would suggest, is to confirm someone's identity. The use of fingerprints in that process is the way to do it. It's fast, highly accurate, and efficient.
As we have increasingly every year 3%, 4%, 5%, or 6% more people—depending on the number and depending on the source—coming through our large international airports, we have to make sure we can process those people through without making them stand in line for the time you mentioned and without hiring more and more border service officers. People more and more around the world are getting used to using their biometrics on arrival in a country to confirm who they are and to proceed as such.
It's the foundation to make our airports work at least as well as before, as more and more people come through our airports, and hopefully better.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
Chungsen Leung Conservative Willowdale, ON
Does this also work for our land border crossings, for crossing to the United States, say, for travellers who are not U.S. citizens?
9:20 a.m.
Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes. Someone with their biometrics on file who is crossing by car at the land border will be able to go into the facility and have their biometrics confirmed that way.
Most of the traffic for Canadians and Americans, of course, will just continue at pace as it does now, but if it's a third country national with biometrics on file, the equipment will be made available inside facilities so that when there are questions about identity, those can be quickly, efficiently, and accurately cleaned up with a quick verification.
9:20 a.m.
Conservative
May 28th, 2015 / 9:20 a.m.
NDP
Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe NDP Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for joining us today. Of course, I'll be asking my questions in French.
First, I'd like to know whether applicants will have to cover the costs of the biometric screening measures.
Could you fill us in on that?
