Transport Committee on April 22nd, 2010

[Rafi Sela]

The system we have can be global. Again, other nations have to adopt the same biometrics, the same cards, and the same system.

I mean, look at your Visa card. You can use your Visa card today to take money out in China, but you are a Canadian bank person. So the same system--I'm not saying the Visa system, but it's the same concept--can be made for the trusted traveller. You can have a trusted traveller card that you can take worldwide, if ICAO will supervise, for instance, and you will be a trusted traveller in Canada, in the United States, in Russia, and in Japan.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

So your personal information would be encrypted on a card. Are there any other governments or airports using your system?

[Rafi Sela]

First of all, let me correct you: there is no personal information on the card. It's only a viable biometric and some other information that is encryption information, because you have been trusted by your government, not by us. When you carry the card, the card is encrypted by a government agency that is a trusted government agency, by ICAO for instance, and no personal information is on the card.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Are there other governments or airports using your system currently?

[Rafi Sela]

Not yet, because we need a global standard. We can't start with two nations. We need a global standard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Monsieur Laframboise.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Salter, from what I've understood, you recommended telling our international partners that our passengers will be treated in accordance with Canadian values. That's what I understood. I would like you to give us some more details on that point.

[Mark Salter]

Thank you.

I entirely agree with Mr. Sela concerning part of his speech. The American agencies now dictate their requirements at the global level. That's partly because 50% of passenger flights are within the United States. The impact of those flights is very significant.

The great concern I have about the transmission of U.S. standards is that the U.S. requires target nationalities to be given more screening, even in foreign countries such as Canada, and they identify those countries with a very broad brush. So after Abdulmutallab at Christmastime, all Nigerians were now subject to extra screening.

Now, we don't share that same sense of risk, that same evaluation of the threat, and in fact there were numbers circulating in the press that up to a million Canadians who were born in those 13 target countries could be subject to those extra screenings.

I think that it is a matter of national sovereignty that we insist to the Americans that we will not give extra screening to those passengers in Canada under Canadian law. That seem to me unjust and not suiting to our political character.

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Sela, what do you think about Mr. Salter's comments?

[Rafi Sela]

I totally agree with him. I think the United States acts on panic and not on the system. You don't discriminate against countries just because people came out of those countries. You don't discriminate against cities because people are having crime committed in those cities. I say this is a stupid decision.

When you qualify, you need to qualify on a behavioural standard and not on origin or colour of skin, or any such regulation. I do believe that we can come up with a standard for a global trusted traveller program, that ICOA will be the enforcer and the regulator, and each government will have to show that they are participants of the right way to do this. Then we will have a system that Canadians, Americans, and Israelis can share.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Bevington.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sela, one question that Mr. Jean had asked you was about the percentage of travellers right now in Israel who are under the trusted traveller program. What is the percentage?

[Rafi Sela]

I don't have the numbers at the top of my head, but I would say about 50%.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

In the past meeting, CATSA said they had no statistics on the costs of security between countries. Are you familiar with the different costs per passenger flight of security systems between Canada, the U.S., Israel, Germany?

[Rafi Sela]

The Ben Gurion system is between 50% and 60% of the cost per passenger...than any other airport in the world. It's less by 40% to 30%.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Salter, do you have any information on that?

[Dr. Mark Salter]

No, I do not.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay.

So what we see is that your system actually costs less.

I'm getting back to these body scanners, because we've invested a fair bit of money in them, and I want to understand.

Mr. Salter, you said they can detect these ceramic knives. What's the threat assessment of a ceramic knife these days with the hardened cockpits? We can't weaponize a plane anymore with a knife—not like 9/11—if proper procedures are followed in the cockpit. What actually will this do? Wouldn't a sniffer system be better for detecting the real hazard, which is an explosive device?

[Dr. Mark Salter]

Mr. Sela seems to have secret information about the spoofing of these that I don't have. It could be that I'm out of the loop.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

But you're using the ceramic knife as a--

[Dr. Mark Salter]

Oh, sorry; I think you're absolutely right that....

My apologies. Were you finished?

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

It's okay. Go ahead.

[Dr. Mark Salter]

I think the current threat is absolutely explosives. The 3-D scanners do a better job of isolating where, on the body, electronic devices are hidden, because they all need some kind of electronic trigger system.

Now, if Mr. Sela has secret information that says that they can be spoofed, then....

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

You could put a trigger system into an electric device--

[Dr. Mark Salter]

Into a cellphone, into a car fob--absolutely.