Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs, Science and Technology
Issue 35 - Evidence - May 29, 2015
OTTAWA, Friday, May 29, 2015
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day, at 8:29 a.m., to study the subject matter of those elements contained in Division 15 of Part 3 of Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 21, 2015 and other measures.
Senator Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Honourable senators, welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
[English]
I'm Kelvin Ogilvie from Nova Scotia, chair of the committee, and I'm going to invite my colleagues to introduce themselves.
Senator Seidman: Judith Seidman from Montreal, Quebec.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Carolyn Stewart Olsen, New Brunswick.
Senator Frum: Linda Frum, Ontario.
Senator Ngo: Senator Ngo, Ontario.
Senator Wallace: John Wallace, New Brunswick.
Senator Campbell: Larry Campbell, British Columbia.
The Chair: Thank you very much, colleagues. Before I welcome our guests, I'm going to remind us that we are here this morning to deal with the subject matter of those elements contained in Division 15 of Part 3 of Bill C-59, An Act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on 21 April 2015 and other measures.
We have two panels this morning, colleagues. In the first panel, which will end no later than 9:30, we have the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. We have two of their colleagues present with us, Sukanya Pillay, General Counsel and Executive Director; and Brenda McPhail, Director, Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Project.
It's my understanding that Ms. Pillay will make a presentation, but both will be available to respond to your questions.
With that, I'm going to invite Ms. Pillay to make her presentation.
Sukanya Pillay, General Counsel and Executive Director, Canadian Civil Liberties Association: I would like to thank the chair and the committee for the opportunity to appear before you here today.
The CCLA has frequently appeared before various committees of the Senate, and we're grateful to be here today to speak about this important Division 15 of Bill C-59.
The CCLA is a national, non-partisan, non-governmental, non-profit organization. We're supported by thousands of individuals across the country from all walks of life. Since 1964, we have been working to fight to promote rights, freedoms and justice throughout Canada.
Concerning Bill C-59 and the particular division in question, we understand that the provisions allow for the expanded use of biometrics collections with respect to people coming into Canada and that these provisions also contemplate electronic filings and automated decision making in certain contexts. It's our view that privacy considerations must be considered at the outset of any expanded and existing, but particularly expanded, scope of biometrics collection.
We know that there are already existing risks to biometrics with the current uses of biometrics right now, and we do have concerns about the expanded use of biometrics without a full appreciation of the implications of the currently identified risks and the various privacy impact assessments that have been done.
Privacy principles at the outset should take into account the basic principles, such as necessity, proportionality, access, use — and by use I also include mission creep. Let me also clarify that the CCLA fully understands the need to verify identity at borders. Our concerns, though, revolve around the other aspects, the privacy concerns that I've raised, the elements that are triggered by biometrics use and particularly expanded use.
For example, will the biometrics collected be stored in centralized databases? We understand that they will be, but our concerns are about the sharing of this information with other countries. For example, we already have bilateral agreements, including the Canada-U.S. Information Sharing Treaty, and there are other similar arrangements with other countries. Will the information collected by Canada be readily accessible and shared with these other countries, particularly when we may have concerns about their privacy protections?
Furthermore, we are concerned not only about this sort of sharing but also about the implications of Bill C-51, which, as you know, contemplates expanded collection and sharing of information across government departments and agencies, as well as with foreign governments and agencies, and foreign and domestic private sector bodies. So we do have concerns about that. We're also concerned about the collection by third parties, including visa access centres, and what controls are in place there.
As you know, biometrics are highly sensitive and potentially invasive. We know that we have iris scans, facial recognition technologies, fingerprints, voice recognition, palm prints — in other words, hand geometry.
When I talked about use and mission creep, will biometrics be used for mass surveillance?
We have also in the past, before another Senate committee, raised our concerns about accountability issues among agencies, and particularly I appeared before another Senate committee to raise my concerns about accountability of the CBSA. Here is an example of an agency that has a very concerning lack of accountability mechanisms — if I may say so — that will be also having access to this.
My final points revolve around equality and discrimination. In particular, biometrics are not foolproof. There is the possibility of false matches and false mismatches. This can also be exacerbated by people who may have disabilities, including hand shaking or issues with literally keeping a straight face. There are some issues about that.
We're also concerned about the impact upon asylum seekers, particularly if access to biometrics information isn't strictly controlled. Could we put them in more vulnerable positions if they are fleeing persecution from another country and we don't have controls over who can access this information? We're also concerned about the electronic filing and automated decision making and the impact this may have and the potential to frustrate Canada's goals towards immigration and also our humanitarian commitments to refugees, both set out in the preamble of the IRPA, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Those are my submissions, and I thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today with my colleague, Dr. Brenda McPhail.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I will now open the floor up to questions from my colleagues. I will begin with Senator Seidman.
Senator Seidman: Thank you very much for your presentation, Ms. Pillay. I well understand that when we collect personal information, whether it is high tech or even basic personal information, there are privacy issues and security issues that we all should be concerned about. You present questions that clearly we must put to departmental officials for more clarification.
However, I would like to ask you this: Use of biometrics is becoming a pretty standard approach in the world these days. Many countries are already using biometrics. Are there things that you know from those examples across the world that we should know as we implement our own systems?
Ms. Pillay: Thank you for that question. That's a very good question. I may ask my colleague to answer, too.
I do also agree with you that the use of biometrics is increasingly a standard approach and is used increasingly in many countries. We've even seen a push in developing countries to expand the use of biometrics even to capture information about their own citizens.
I would say, though, that the increasing use and perhaps the desensitization of individuals towards the prevalence of biometrics in our international societies do not in any way diminish the privacy risks that are associated with biometrics. While we hear many states and many actors tout the benefits or advantages of biometrics, that does not in any way diminish the very serious risks that exist with it.
Before turning it over to my colleague, I would suggest to you that we look at some of the EU's concerns around biometrics, particularly the use of biometrics at borders. I know that courts, for example in Germany, have questioned the value, if you will, of the overkill of information that can be collected when the purpose is to authenticate identity. I feel there are very important lessons that can help Canada to ensure that it has the right protections in place.
I would like to invite Brenda to weigh in, if she would like to.
Brenda McPhail, Director, Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Project, Canadian Civil Liberties Association: I would confirm and reiterate that in jurisdictions around the world, although biometric data is often used in identification schemes, it's also virtually uniformly agreed to be sensitive data and highly personal data that is deserving of the highest levels of privacy protection, definitely in the European context and also in places like Israel and Australia, and Sukanya mentioned Germany and France. A number of countries around the world have dealt with issues around biometric identification, both in terms of identification schemes and in court cases, particularly involving criminal investigations. Even in cases where individuals were deemed to have committed a criminal act, courts nonetheless would agree that in certain cases collection of biometric data and sharing of biometric data, particularly across divisions of government, was detrimental to their privacy rights.
Senator Lang: I want to welcome our witnesses here today. I'm a member of the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, and we're in the process of completing our report for the purposes of reporting on the CBSA. So this is somewhat fortuitous.
At the opening, I'd like to assure our witnesses that over the course of our study of Bill C-51, the anti-terrorist legislation — and I'm pleased to report to members here and to them — we received assurances from the minister that they were going to ensure that privacy impact studies would be made, introduced and implemented among the various departments as far as exchanging of information is concerned. I think that's important for the record so that there's no misinformation out there with the public in respect to Bill C-51 and exactly what the effect will be. I'm sure you're very pleased to hear that.
The other point I would like to make is that over the course of our study, we found that figures were as high as 40,000 or 45,000 individuals had been identified as inadmissible to Canada and were still in this country in one manner or another. We have no idea who they are, where they are and what, exactly, they're doing, how many have left the country and how many have stayed in the country. That puts, to some degree I would say, the general public at risk for those who are pursuing criminality or who may be involved in other countries with war crimes, this type of thing.
My question to the witnesses, who are obviously well versed on the legislation — and I appreciate that — is this: Do you believe that Canada, in view of the world and the way it has changed, should be putting in a system to register the entry and exit of all travellers so that we have a clear understanding of who is coming into the country and who has left the country so that we can administer our borders?
Ms. Pillay: Thank you for that question, Senator Lang. My understanding is that we already have systems in place that do record the entry and exit of visitors to Canada, and we don't have an issue with doing that. We know that these are issues that the country, Parliament, the government have focused on, particularly with the introduction of the Canada-U.S. security perimeter a few years ago and increasing the technologies around the use of recording such information.
I also appreciate that you have mentioned that privacy impact assessments will be used. Bringing the question and the point together, in our view, biometrics is not a panacea. It is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for the potential that can serve the country. But there is also a potential for abuse, and that potential for abuse can have serious consequences — not only to individuals who are legitimately in the country but also to abuse by other states that can access this.
With respect to the exit-entry comments that you raised and recording, I would like to invite my colleague to say a few words about it.
Ms. McPhail: I think the current concerns about entry and exit programs in relation to things like the biometrically enhanced passports, which are now becoming an international standard, have been relatively well documented. There's a problem with issues of false matches or false positives in relation to biometrics that are troubling. It's not entirely clear that instituting additional measures that test legitimate travellers who are crossing borders in an open way are going to address the problems of people who have come into the country and who are undocumented, because it is largely possible that those individuals have engaged in subterfuge in an attempt to get into the country. The processes that are being applied to all legitimate travellers may or may not be effective in catching those who attempt to elude them. At the same time, they penalize people who legitimately need to come into Canada, particularly when you're extending this to greater numbers of immigrants outside the work visa, the temporary worker program and the student visa program, which we currently use biometrics for in the context of IRPA, and extending it to more vulnerable populations, such as refugees, and immigrants who are coming into Canada with the full intention of contributing and becoming valuable members to our communities, our society.
Senator Lang: To clarify for the record here, our information is that there is no exit system in place. That should be of major concern to all of us from the point of view of the borders. We can speak of that later.
As far as screening is concerned, in view of the system that we have in place now, where it is becoming more and more apparent that there are individuals who, unfortunately, utilize the weaknesses in our system to forge documents and utilize other people's passports in order to be able to gain access into this country, would you not agree that as long as we have the safeguards in place to guard against abuse of the system and the information, we should use the most modern technology, such as biometrics, in order to ensure to the best of our ability that those individuals who are coming here not to be good citizens but to intentionally cause havoc in some cases with our general population — that's in part why we have a border — are who they say they are and we can welcome them accordingly?
Ms. Pillay: Thank you, Senator Lang. My response would be to reiterate what I said at the outset, namely that we do not dispute the importance of authenticating identity at the border and we do not dispute the value that biometrics can provide. As you have said, however, the crux of the issue lies in ensuring the proper safeguards are in place, and that is very important. Proper safeguards revolve around not only access and storage but also secondary uses of the captured information.
Ms. McPhail: It's important to note as well that biometrics are highly effective for authenticating identity. That's indisputable, and we don't dispute it, but biometrics cannot tell us about intentionality of those individuals entering the country. So even with the best biometric program in the world, it's not going to allow us to determine who is entering Canada with the intention to harm.
In the meantime, many people who have no intention to harm will have their personal information captured and potentially shared. In this case, there are questions that need to be addressed about whether or not the risk to Canada is proportionate with the actions of mass biometric screening.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you for your presentation. I would ask your opinion in looking at this a little differently. I know that in today's system, where we check with passports and documentation, a great many mistakes are made and people may be held, for instance, if they have the same name as someone who is on the no-fly list. Don't you think that perhaps biometrics would be a good way to mitigate that kind of thing from happening?
I think that you have to look at perhaps a better technology, providing more security for people who are travelling and who don't want their identities unnecessarily questioned at borders and things like that. I would ask you to have a look at the other side.
Ms. Pillay: Thank you, Senator Stewart Olsen. I suppose I would respond that we are on the same side of that comment in the sense that we do not dispute the value of biometrics as a tool in authenticating identity. Our concerns are not about the value in authenticating identity. Our concerns are about privacy implications that have potentially not been thought through: the risks that are inherent to biometrics technology in itself; such risks as my colleagues mentioned, such as false matches, false mismatches; and also the potential risks to asylum seekers who, by nature — and this has been recognized since the times of Raoul Wallenberg in post-1945 — that individuals who are fleeing persecution may sometimes have to travel under a false identity. We would also want to consider those implications of biometrics. We would not want to be seen to be putting people back into the risk of persecution when they're fleeing from that.
That's one aspect of it. The broader aspect, I will say, is the privacy risks associated around biometrics. To be clear, we do not dispute the value of biometrics. We have not said "do not use biometrics.'' We know that biometrics can authenticate identity. What we are saying is — and we have written comments that we can send — that the legislation has broadly invited greater use of biometrics, and our concern is whether or not the existing risks have been studied, what has been the assessment and how the existing privacy impact assessments that have already been done have been incorporated into the drafting of this legislation or how is it contemplated that they will be.
We would like to have some assurance that the proper privacy protocols will be put into place and not just hope that they will be through the regulations that are contemplated at the outset of Bill C-59.
Senator Stewart Olsen: I certainly respect what you're saying, and I'm happy that there is an organization that keeps us on our toes about things like that.
Senator Lang mentioned the assurance that the department gave us with the privacy risk assessments in conjunction with the Privacy Commissioner. I think that can be an example to you of just noting that your concerns are, of course, always our concerns as well. If we do something, we'd like to do it right, and I would hope that you would take that into consideration.
The Chair: There doesn't appear to be a return comment.
Senator Campbell: Thank you very much for coming today. Can you give me some examples of how biometrics can be abused?
Ms. Pillay: Yes, there are many. My colleague here is an expert. Before I turn it over to her, one example I can give is that one can use facial recognition to conduct mass surveillance on society. The use of biometrics allows us to take a leap in terms of tracking the real-time whereabouts of people through these uses. When you combine that with other existing technologies — for example, we have heard privacy advocates, including ourselves, the CCLA, express concern over the potential for abuse in getting the GPS information in a person's cellphone to track their whereabouts. But that's a physical device that an individual can leave at home. An individual can't leave their face at home. So that's one potential for abuse with biometrics.
Brenda, would you like to add?
Ms. McPhail: The potentials for abuse are compounded also by the risks of the security of the information. When you collect large amounts of biometric data in a database, it becomes a profoundly attractive target for those who might wish to hack into such a system because, as my colleague mentioned, you cannot change your face to a fairly large extent. Even more, you cannot change your fingerprints.
If someone were to be able to collect the fingerprints of a variety of individuals, the potential for identity theft and harm to individuals would be extremely profound; the greater amount of data that you have in a single location, the higher level of target that is for those who might wish to do harm.
In terms of risk, it's not just a matter of the kinds of things that might happen to individuals, but also things that we run the risk of having happen to large groups of citizens or immigrants or refugees or visitors to Canada as a result of information collection.
Ms. Pillay: I would just say that the risk, as Brenda has said, is exacerbated because the potential hackers of a centralized database are now no longer limited to our country, but there's exposure internationally. As we've also said, even the permitted access by other states inherently has an accompanied risk because privacy standards are not the same across the world.
Senator Campbell: I'm missing something here. I asked how it could be abused, and you replied that the information could be hacked. That, in fact, is true of any information. Any information can be hacked.
I was trying to understand how, for instance, my face could be put on somebody else's face, or they could track me by my face, God forbid. I'm a little old-fashioned.
I wasn't there when fingerprints were invented.
Senator Lang: Almost.
Senator Campbell: I almost was. Over the years, that was the gold standard. A fingerprint was the gold standard. Simply what has happened is that we've just extended the fingerprint model to include more up-to-date, more modern methods: iris, palm and facial recognition.
I'd like to know how that can be misconstrued.
Ms. Pillay: I understand your question. Let me see if I can clarify our response. One thing I would say is that the biometric information is very sensitive and provides very personal information, so the risks increase with them.
You've asked how it can be abused. It can be abused through use, because you start to use it for things that weren't allowed in collecting it for authenticating identity. You can now use it for surveillance. I'll let Brenda speak about that.
It can also be stolen. For example, with credit card identity theft, we now think about a credit card being stolen, but you can get that back. But if your fingerprints and iris scans are in the hands of people who want to use them for some nefarious purpose, it's very hard to generate a new identity.
I will let my colleague explain a little bit more about this. It's not as far-fetched as one might think. The potential exists.
There's also a very famous case following the Madrid bombings of a data bank of fingerprints where there was a false match that resulted in great harm to the individual who was falsely matched as being present at the time.
Would you like to elaborate on the abuse question, Brenda?
Ms. McPhail: To make it more concrete in terms of facial recognition, it's largely the case that it's not just public sector actors, but a large number of private sector actors currently have access to both camera technology and the behind-the-scenes algorithms and networks that allow facial recognition. Theoretically, were your facial recognition data to be scooped, it would potentially be possible for an extremely clever and well-connected, malicious individual to track you every time you went to a store, every time you walked down the street where there were public cameras, every time you walked through a mall, every time you went to a bank and every time you withdrew money from an ATM.
Much of the surveillance camera infrastructure that we have in place ostensibly for security and protection currently has the potential to collect that same kind of data, and were someone to have the template of your face, it would be entirely possible, although somewhat speculative, for you to be tracked in a wide range of day-to-day activities over a long period of time.
Senator Campbell: What would your answer be to the use of this data, for instance, in the Vancouver hockey riot where we matched up driver's licence pictures and used facial recognition for videos that were taken of the riot to identity people who were participating in the riot? Is that an abuse?
Ms. McPhail: That's a difficult question. There's a lot of nuance to it. From a privacy perspective, because individuals did not consent to being filmed and did not expect that purpose for their data, there is a level of violation. Because those individuals were clearly breaking the law and therefore doing wrong and harming society, there may well be a justification for that kind of action. The issue comes then in terms of the level of evidentiary value that those kinds of films can have, which are generally collected by concerned citizens and handed in, and the way that data is then interpreted in a court of law.
The short answer is that it's not necessarily always wrong, but it needs to be considered very carefully in terms of the kind of society we want to have and whether or not we think that when people are generally acting in public, it should be possible for them to be identified. When they're committing crimes, they probably should be. If they were just participating lawfully in a public action of dissent, then they should not be.
Senator Campbell: If I was participating lawfully, I wouldn't have to worry about it. That's the bottom line.
You know I support you guys, and you know I have worked with you on a number of occasions, but at some point in time, reality has to set in here. I know that we are defending and protecting the minority and those people that need to be protected, and I appreciate that perhaps more than a lot of people.
At the same time, I am also professionally an investigator, and there's this idea that when I investigate, I throw a big net and everybody gets into it. I couldn't care less about the people that aren't breaking the law, but I want to catch those that are. One of the ways of doing that is through modern technology, which is only going to increase and get more refined.
To me, the model of the riot says it all. You can't mealy-mouth this. The fact of the matter is that people who were not committing crimes were not investigated and were not arrested. I think we need to have safeguards in place, there's no question about it, but I don't think the safeguards should be such that they would negate the ability to use this as an investigative tool.
Ms. Pillay: Senator Campbell, may I respond?
Senator Campbell: Of course.
Ms. Pillay: Thank you for your question and also for your comment. I think the example itself raises many of the issues that we are concerned about. Without a doubt, the CCLA has public safety as one of its prime concerns. We don't doubt that. The example you have raised in itself has expanded the use of biometrics that we were discussing here within the context of the IRPA to broadly being used on Canadians.
In many other spheres and other submissions and presentations, we have been vocal about our concerns about the prevalence of cameras in public spaces and the implication that there is now a continuous surveillance of innocent and law-abiding Canadians.
We certainly understand the value and the potential use of new technologies in capturing people who do commit crimes. We should not be distracted, if I may say so — and I'm not saying that you are. I'm saying we as a society should not be so distracted by the benefits and the uses of new technologies as to divert us from our very basic privacy principles.
Just as we have always said that we believe in the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure when a crime is committed, we do not allow police officers to enter the homes and search the cellphones and handbags and knapsacks of every individual in the perimeter. We approach this in a reasonable way that takes into account privacy rights, and we have certain safeguards in place, which you have mentioned. The same thing would apply to the use of cameras in public spaces.
There is a balance to be struck. We are very practical at the CCLA, but we do not feel that privacy rights have to be sacrificed to achieve public safety and to be practical.
Senator Wallace: Thank you. Ms. Pillay, a couple of times you referred to false matches that have arisen from the use of biometrics as an identification tool. Listening to everything you said, I'm not sure whether you are questioning the reliability of biometrics as an identification tool or not. Are you questioning the extent to which it can be relied upon as an identification tool?
Ms. Pillay: Thank you, Senator Wallace. I'm saying that we have to factor in the potential for error. There is no infallible technology that I'm aware of, and even with something like fingerprints, there's a human factor in how biometrics are used. There is already a human potential for error.
Even when we're talking about something as fundamental as fingerprints, they can be altered. Your fingerprints can deteriorate if you are somebody who works with chemicals. They can deteriorate through aging. There might be shaking with people who have Parkinson's disease. I know the EFF, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in the U.S. has studied this, and they said that the proportion of people who can be susceptible to mismatches is not insignificant.
All we're saying is that we must be aware that the utility of biometrics is not without the accompanying risks, and false matches and mismatches can be one of those risks. That doesn't mean don't use it. What that means is have strict protocols around it so that we can minimize those risks.
Brenda, is there anything you would like to add to that?
Ms. McPhail: The only thing to add to that is that there is a tendency with biometrics, because we think of it as a scientific and technological process, to believe that it is going to be reliable and accurate. While it is most of the time, the reality is that even a small percentage of inaccuracies, when you are assessing an extremely large number of people, can result in a large number of mismatches.
We want to flag that point as a possibility, not to suggest that biometrics is overall generally unreliable.
Senator Wallace: Perfection would be a great thing if we could achieve it, but very little in this world is perfect. Your comments reminded me of some of the early comments made when DNA identification was used and the concerns about the reliability of it.
In any event, to the extent that you have referred to false matches, do you have any data or information regarding the frequency or causes of alleged false matches? That would be very useful to us when we're speaking to the department.
Ms. Pillay: We are planning to send you a written submission. We can send those in today, and we can include that information. It is possible that Brenda might have something to say to it right now, but we will be very happy to include some of that information as well.
Ms. McPhail: I would prefer to do that in the written comments to ensure the figures are accurate.
Ms. Pillay: The one point I would like to add, if I may, is that we cannot minimize the reliability factor. It exists. We're not exaggerating it. We're saying that it exists, and we're asking this committee to consider it. We are also flagging for this committee and reiterating our concerns around use and who else will have access to this captured information.
These are things that we think are crucial for Canada to pay attention to, and this is something that privacy advocates around the world have paid attention to, and other states, including Germany, France and even Australia, have paid significant attention to it. The risks are real; the potential benefits are also real. We need to ensure at the outset that we get it right.
Even with DNA, there's great potential for abuse and potential for error. We have been active also in advocating ensuring that as DNA collection becomes easier and more prevalent, proper privacy protocols are maintained with respect to DNA as well.
The Chair: Ms. Pillay, if you are going to get us something, could you get it to the clerk electronically by midday today or early this afternoon?
Ms. Pillay: Yes.
Ms. McPhail: Yes, we can.
The Chair: I will now turn to Senator Frum.
Senator Frum: The lead story on the CBC national news on Monday night was about how millions of visitors come to Canada every month, and they are not screened against the Canadian Police Information Centre database. If it was possible to harmonize the database with biometrics, does that harmonization create privacy problems, in your mind?
Ms. McPhail: Yes. The short answer is yes. Absolutely, it creates privacy implications. There's a general societal question now in terms of the validity of mass surveillance and mass screening to attempt to find the one or two possible people that might have a record in the midst of thousands of people entering the country who do not, who are legitimate travellers. In the United States right now when people are looking at instances of NSA mass surveillance, which is a slightly different thing, the courts are saying it is not justifiable to take a look at the data of every citizen to find the one or two needles in a haystack you are looking for. The privacy invasion that you are looking at is not proportionate to the risk to the country that you are attempting to prevent.
In the case of mass surveillance of people at the border, I would suggest that you have a similar issue there.
Senator Frum: I'm not sure I understand the objection. For those citizens who are not listed on the police databases there would be no information about them. It would be an automatic process. If you are on the database that information would come up, and if you are not on the database, the absence of that information would also come up.
I'm not sure I understand where the privacy violation is.
Ms. McPhail: For example, to bring it back to Division 15 that we're talking about today in relation to IRPA, should this pass, the data of every immigrant and refugee applicant to Canada would be shared with the RCMP as part of the check process that would happen. At least, that's the process now. Potentially, the information of everyone who had been an immigrant to Canada would come up on one of those checks.
We are, therefore, creating a system where those who are not born in Canada but have immigrated to Canada and have been accepted into our society are going to pop up in screenings that are ostensibly looking for criminal activity.
Ms. Pillay: To clarify, we are not opposed to the identification of individuals who have some sort of police record and we identified them as a threat.
What we're saying is bear in mind that the more you collect information and the more you disseminate it, the more information is out there.
If you have 10 people whose information is compared with whatever is in the CPIC database or the RCMP database and nine of those people are innocent and law-abiding, now their information is in the realm of information that has been collected and can be shared.
That's why we say it is very important that there are strict protocols around that, because secondary uses are a problem that we have had with all technologies, advanced and very preliminary, and the potential for the abuse there is extreme.
Also, when you are talking about newcomer Canadians, people whose biometrics might be in the system, we don't want to have a society where we have an inequality between Canadians who were born here and Canadians who have gained citizenship after coming here. We want to treat everybody equally. If there's a significant proportion of individuals who could be surveyed at all times, we have to make sure that that information is addressed, used, kept and stored in a manner that observes the highest protections because it is the potential for misuse, expanded use and access that concerns us.
Senator Ngo: I would like to follow up on the questions by Senator Frum. If that's the case, you know that every year we accept about 250,000 immigrants coming to Canada, so you are saying that you are opposed to sharing the information between CIC and the RCMP. What are you going to do with 250,000 people coming to Canada without checking their security, without using any information sharing?
If that's the case, what are your views on the privacy safeguards that have been built into the policy and procedure of the system that ensure that the client's information is dealt with securely?
Ms. Pillay: I would like to clarify what we have said, which is that the potential for the abuse of that information is great. While we have concerns about doing these comparative matches and checks with databases, we have not said do not use it, which I think is what you thought we said, based on your opening remarks. I want to clarify that.
What we are saying is once that information is captured on those 250,000 people, it is very important that the right protocols and safeguards are in place, because the potential for abuse and discrimination is not insignificant once those people are in the country. Also, the potential for access is not insignificant.
We're saying that when we introduce new technologies, at the very moment of inception of introduction, we must be thinking about the privacy protocols that are in place, because the potential for misuse and abuse of that information is great. That's the position.
Ms. McPhail: On the previous question, the response may have confused our initial position.
We don't oppose the screening at the moment of entry in order to assure that those individuals entering Canada are who they say they are. Biometrics is a robust identification system, and it is useful for that purpose.
Our concern would be that in cases like the RCMP later using them for future border crossings, the data of a number of people would be caught up in a secondary use that may or may not be deemed appropriate in Canadian society. We're not disputing that it is appropriate to do initial screening to make sure those who enter the country are who they say they are, as long as their data is subsequently protected adequately.
The Chair: Thank you very much. We are beginning to get into a what-if discussion to a very large degree here.
I want to go back through some of your comments, Ms. Pillay. Your comment that you recognize and accept the importance of moving forward with regard to technologies or techniques that will help us deal with the legitimate issues, on the one hand, is certainly appropriate for all Canadians to look forward to in that regard. On the other hand, you have expressed concern about the possibilities that could exist for abuse should such data fall into the wrong hands.
We are looking at both in terms of the civil liberty of law-abiding Canadians and Canadians in general, as well as those you have specifically identified today. Where we are with regard to the issues that you have identified in terms of concern about the imperfection of any technology, we have come a long way from the idea of eyewitness detection to the modern technologies that have given security to a great number of innocent people with regard to the possible misidentification of them under general kinds of circumstances. This is another evolutionary technique.
With regard to immigrants being treated differently than Canadians, it is my knowledge that those of us with NEXUS cards have had an iris scan. The new Canadian passport available to Canadians involves biometrics and so on. Many of these issues apply generally.
With regard to the issue of the use of general biometric scanning and the application process of new immigrants, we will be dealing with officials next, and we will ask them questions around some of these issues, but unless an immigrant has in their record previous issues with the law in the countries they come from, it would be unlikely to wind up on the initial screens with regard to those things.
I know you are concerned about the misuse of these issues, but we have noted your questions, and we will try to get answers to a lot of these as we go forward.
In your opening remarks, you dealt with the idea that the issue of certain diseases and so on can affect the accuracy of a biometric recording. These are issues that one would assume, and we expect that that will be explained by officials. In the clause that we are dealing with, proposed new section 10.02, there are categories, specifically paragraph (d) that says:
(d) the circumstances in which a person is not required to provide certain biometric information . . .
As you well know, the ultimate test of the value and application of any of these laws is in the institution of the regulations that are developed following the passage of the act.
The issues that you have raised today are certainly issues that will be looked at with regard to the application of the bill. We have clearly understood the concerns you have raised. There has been some debate about the extent to which those concerns are valid or not at the present time, but that's fair. That's the nature of the discussion of these issues.
I want to thank you both for your very clear enunciation of your concerns about this bill, and we will certainly be taking your comments into consideration.
We are very pleased to have the experts in areas related to this piece of legislation with us now.
We have, from Canada Border Services Agency, Andrew Lawrence, Director, Traveller Transformation, Air Mode Division, Programs Branch. And from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we have Chris Gregory, Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing; Brenna MacNeil, Senior Director, Strategic Policy and Planning; and Bruce Grundison, Executive Director, Strategic Projects Office.
It is my understanding that Mr. Gregory will begin, Ms. MacNeil will follow him, and then we will open the floor for questions. Mr. Gregory, please.
[Translation]
Chris Gregory, Director, Identity Management and Information Sharing, Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Good morning, my name is Chris Gregory. I am the Director of Identity Management and Information Sharing at Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
I am here to answer any technical questions you may have on the proposed amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act related to biometric screening under Part 3, Division 15 of Bill C-59.
[English]
Mr. Chair, verifying a person's identity is vital to decisions made by Canadian visa officers abroad and by border services officers at Canadian ports of entry. An increase in application volumes and in the sophistication of identity fraud poses significant challenges to maintaining the integrity of Canada's immigration system. The use of biometrics in the immigration screening process helps us to address these challenges.
In 2013, CIC successfully implemented the Temporary Resident Biometrics Project, on time and on budget. Under this initiative, we use fingerprints and a digital photograph to screen applicants from 29 countries and one territory who are applying to Canada for a temporary resident visa, work permit or study permit. Privacy safeguards have been built into policies, procedures and technical systems to ensure that client information is collected, transmitted, used and stored securely.
[Translation]
In the field of immigration, biometric screening is now the standard worldwide. More than 70 countries use it. This new initiative brings Canada in line with key allies who are increasingly using biometric screening as part of their border security and immigration programs.
[English]
Biometric screening in Canada's Temporary Resident Program is proving effective in protecting the safety and security of Canadians and the integrity of the immigration system, while also facilitating travel for genuine travellers. It has made it easier to establish and confirm a person's identity and to identify known criminals before they come to Canada. It has also facilitated the entry of applicants seeking to come to Canada for legitimate purposes and made it more difficult for others to forge, steal or use another person's identity to fraudulently gain access to our country.
[Translation]
In Economic Action Plan 2014, the Government of Canada highlighted the importance of biometric screening in Canada's immigration program and committed to exploring new ways to improve the security and integrity of the immigration system.
[English]
To this end, Economic Action Plan 2015 announced the expansion of the biometric screening program. Through the proposed legislative amendments in front of you today, we are seeking to expand biometric screening to more foreign nationals applying to come to Canada, including foreign nationals applying to come to Canada temporarily to visit, work or study, as well as to those applying for permanent residency. As Canadians are generally exempt from providing their biometrics when seeking temporary entry to the United States, U.S. citizens will also be exempt from providing their biometrics when they apply to study or work in Canada.
The fingerprints we collect will be checked against the RCMP's immigration and criminal fingerprint records, which would confirm if someone has previously applied to CIC using the same or a different identity or has previously been removed or has a previous Canadian criminal conviction. Upon arrival in Canada, these individuals would have their fingerprints verified to ensure that the person who was issued the visa or permit is the same individual seeking to enter Canada.
These legislative amendments will be supported by regulatory amendments that would come into effect in 2018-19. Safeguards will continue to be in place, including in the regulations, to ensure that biometric screening is conducted in accordance with Canada's privacy laws and policies.
Expanding the use of biometrics in our immigration and border screening processes will help facilitate the entry of genuine travellers and strengthen the safety and security of Canadians by reducing identity fraud and preventing the entry of inadmissible people, including known criminals, into the country.
Mr. Chair, I'll turn the microphone over to my colleague, Brenna.
Brenna MacNeil, Senior Director, Strategic Policy and Planning Branch, Citizenship and Immigration Canada: Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable senators. Thank you for the invitation to speak today about Bill C-59, specifically Part 3, Division 15, related to legislative amendments proposed to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or IRPA, concerning automated processing and decision making.
[Translation]
Mr. Chair, these provisions will allow the ministers of Citizenship and Immigration and Public Safety to administer and enforce the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by using electronic means, which includes enabling automated decisions.
[English]
Economic Action Plan 2013 announced investments to improve processing, allowing Citizenship and Immigration Canada to lay the groundwork for an electronic and automated business model.
In January 2015, the department launched Express Entry, a new electronic system to manage applications for permanent residence under certain economic immigration programs.
Also, later in 2015, CIC will begin implementing the Electronic Travel Authorization, or eTA initiative. Under this initiative, applicants will be able to apply online for their eTA, and an automated system will significantly facilitate the movement of legitimate travellers due to robust pre-boarding screening.
Building on this foundation, CIC is proposing legislative amendments to allow the department to further leverage technology for greater efficiency. These legislative changes, together with subsequent regulatory amendments, would permit CIC to electronically administer activities related to IRPA, such as handling straightforward decisions. Through technology, routine, straightforward tasks can be performed by the system, freeing up officer time for more value-added complex activities. This should significantly enhance the timelines and efficiency of decision making and processing, while ensuring appropriate program integrity measures are in place.
More specifically, these amendments will enable automated positive and negative decisions on applications, give CIC authority to mandate electronic submissions of applications, with some exceptions such as for persons with disabilities, which will be central to CIC's electronic global processing network.
The provisions provide regulation-making authority to govern the details of the technologies to be used in other key supports.
Subject to regulations, the provisions allow for nationals to make applications from within Canada as long as they have maintained appropriate status in the country.
[Translation]
Given the general application of the above provisions, other sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act that already relate to electronic service delivery, such as Express Entry and electronic travel authorization, will be amended to avoid repetition within the act. These amendments do not diminish or change the nature of the authorities already granted by IRPA.
[English]
To maximize efficiency across CIC's processing network, these legislative amendments would apply across the act to both temporary and permanent resident streams. CIC already uses electronic applications in both streams and has introduced automated ranking of submissions in the Express Entry system.
Expanded use of electronic processing in the temporary and permanent resident streams will allow CIC to move work across its entire delivery network and make the best use of existing resources. Automating steps in processing will also free up officers from simple and repetitive work and allow CIC to focus resources where they matter most — on the higher-risk and more complex applications that require close scrutiny and that automated systems are unable to fully process.
These amendments will help CIC improve client experience as well. Overall, clients will receive improved service through faster processing and will benefit from a framework that allows leveraging of new technologies that are responsive to the expectations of modern service delivery.
As CIC increases the use of electronic processing, the department, working with Shared Services Canada, will continue to ensure that privacy protections and robust system security measures remain a cornerstone of the department's approach. These amendments will allow CIC to improve how it does business without altering the nature of that business.
[Translation]
Automation and making greater use of technology along the processing continuum is aligned with the direction of immigration-receiving countries around the world, including Australia, New Zealand and the United States which have all, to some degree, incorporated electronic processing into their immigration systems.
[English]
In conclusion, Mr. Chair, these amendments will help CIC make better use of technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its processes, provide clients with faster and more efficient service, and improve the department's ability to focus its resources on the cases that need it most.
Thank you, and I and my colleagues are ready to respond to your questions.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I'm now going to open the session up to questions from my colleagues.
Senator Seidman: Thank you very much for being with us this morning. Just prior to your presentations to us, we heard witnesses from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who expressed certain degrees of reservations about privacy and security issues related to these amendments, specifically to the biometric processes.
Clearly, we know that biometric identity measures are being taken in many countries across the world today, and we have had some experience already here in this country. Therefore, Mr. Gregory, if I might, your title says you're the director of identity management and information sharing at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, so perhaps you're the perfect person to answer some of these questions.
Apprehensions were expressed about privacy and security of information, specifically accountability issues and sharing across different government agencies and departments. If you could help me understand, you said that in 2013 you successfully implemented a biometrics project. With these apprehensions in mind, could you give us some indication of what problems you might have encountered, what challenges there were and what issues might have come up during this project, given your experience?
Mr. Gregory: Thank you for the question and the interest in particular in privacy and challenges we have. The project was implemented in late 2013, so we've been collecting fingerprints from certain applicants from certain countries since then and using those fingerprints to help screen their applications. The government decided to move in this direction as early as 2008 or 2009 with announcements in those budgets, so it certainly wasn't something that was rushed. Much of that time was spent figuring out some of the technical issues associated with doing this, but also, perhaps even more interesting, figuring out how we can develop a system with privacy protections built into it so that we can roll out this project in a responsible way.
Some of the things we think about are how do we collect these fingerprints and how do we collect them in a privacy- sensitive way. One of the challenges we had to address is that we'll be collecting fingerprints from many locations around the world. We want to be able to serve our clients in the best way possible and give them as many different places to apply as they can. Therefore, we developed a machine that takes a fingerprint, transmits it securely using an encryption algorithm from the RCMP and then immediately deletes the biometric from the machine that was used to capture the biometric so that biometrics are not stored at multiple locations around the world. They're stored only here in Canada and only with the RCMP.
In terms of the storage of the biometrics, it was decided that rather than store them at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, the department that had not before stored fingerprints, we would instead turn to our colleagues across town, the Mounties, who have been collecting and storing and analyzing fingerprints for many decades and frankly are world-class at it and keep those fingerprints in a very safe and responsible way. They keep them in a separate area within their system. They're keeping them for us, and they're keeping them quite safe and over the year we've been doing this have kept them quite safe. We then look at things like use and responsible use and using them for the purpose for which they were collected. We had time to build those protections into the system.
If the legislation goes through and the regulations are passed, to the extent that we won't actually be implementing this expansion for a few years yet, we have that time to continue to work carefully to make sure that when it's implemented, it will be implemented with world-class privacy protections.
Senator Seidman: Thank you. That's very helpful.
You say the client information is collected, transmitted, used and stored securely. You've said that it's deleted from the system internationally once it's been checked, stored securely and encrypted in a system we have lots of experience with. Do I understand you correctly? So it's stored here in a system in this country that we have a lot of experience with. There was some conversation here about hacking and how these things can be stolen, and it's much more complicated when you're stealing a biometric print in terms of impersonating someone afterwards.
Mr. Gregory: Stealing a print and then using it to impersonate someone would be incredibly difficult. Stealing a bunch of zeroes and ones that constitute that print and then doing something with it is not something there's a lot of experience with.
As soon as we collect the print overseas, it's securely transmitted through an encrypted, secure line to our department and then over to the RCMP. The biometric itself is immediately deleted from the machine, and the machines are built in that way to do that.
Senator Seidman: That's really reassuring. Thank you.
Are you planning on using other forms of biometric information? You've used digital photographs and fingerprints, and I know there are retinal scans that are used in other systems for NEXUS and things, but are there plans to move beyond fingerprints and digital photographs?
Mr. Gregory: Yes, you're right, senator. We currently collect 10 fingerprints and take a digital photograph. The digital photograph is used on entry. When the visitor arrives and gets off the plane for an examination, that photograph can be used to visually compare the person and the passport and the photograph that was taken at the visa application centre, but it's not being used in a facial recognition way. There's no algorithm involved in that process at this time, and it's not our plans to move in that direction at this time.
We're using the fingerprints; we're screening those fingerprints against fingerprints that we've previously collected in our country to see if this person is using the same identity they used last time in their interactions with us, to see if this is someone who has been deported from our country, to see if this is someone who has previously committed a crime in our country and is perhaps now trying to return using a new identity. There are no plans to use any other type of biometric, and to some degree, the photos are the only biometrics we're currently using and will continue to use.
Senator Campbell: Thank you very much for coming today.
I have to tell you that I'm quite amazed that the old chestnut, the fingerprint, is still holding up and still proving true. I was confused. The biometrics actually refers to the fact of digitalizing those fingerprints rather than in the past you would go for matches of 10, whatever. These are actually digitalized into ones and zeros; is that correct?
Mr. Gregory: Yes, sir. Can I introduce my colleague?
The Chair: Please come to the table. We have additional expertise that, with your permission, I'll invite to the table.
Senator Campbell: An amazing committee, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: Would you please sit down and identify yourself and respond to the question?
Brendan Heffernan, Director General, Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Brendan Heffernan, and I'm Director General of the Canadian Criminal Real Time Identification Services with the RCMP.
In answer to your question, senator and Mr. Chairman, the ones and zeros are in the encrypted fashion. It comes in, and what's compared within our system is an actual fingerprint. When it's encrypted it's sort of taken apart, and it comes through a very secure network. It comes into our system through a whole network of firewalls, virus checks, network access controls — a veritable unbreakable security system when it comes in.
This is married up with a number of additional security features within our system, but it reforms the fingerprint, and then all the minutiae and the friction ridges and everything are compared against the known fingerprint. It's really a fingerprint compared against a fingerprint.
As my colleague Chris was saying, it's encrypted, decrypted, goes through all our secure systems and then goes into the AFIS, which is the automated fingerprint identification system, and is compared against what we have in there.
You will recall that in the old days we inked and rolled fingerprints.
Senator Campbell: I'm very familiar with that technique.
Mr. Heffernan: There you go. The old paper prints are scanned into our system in the same fashion. There's a series of photos, if you will, that are taken. It's broken up. They're re-layered, and so on. It comes back as the identical print that was taken, and then it's compared against that. The ones and the zeros are really the data piece that puts it all together at the end.
Senator Campbell: When it goes to the automatic identification system, what data banks is it compared against, if you can tell me?
Mr. Heffernan: Yes, I can. There are three data banks that it's searched against. There's the criminal record depository. CPIC is a collection of databases, so where the fingerprints are stored is within what's called the identification data bank. That is one pillar within CPIC, and that's where everything is stored. Within that there's the criminal database; the refugee database, because it's a legacy system for refugees; and then the immigration data bank. Now information on all refugees goes into the data bank. However, we had legacy information that was too complicated to move into the immigration database, so we maintain it, and the information is searched against that. It's searched for immigration activity, refugee activity and criminal activity.
Senator Campbell: Do you use any international data banks?
Mr. Heffernan: In terms of?
Senator Campbell: Identification. What happens if I run criminal, refugee and immigration, and these are all banks that are in Canada; is that correct?
Mr. Heffernan: Yes.
Senator Campbell: Is there any way of my going into an international data bank and finding out further information about this person from a criminal point of view?
Mr. Heffernan: There are ways to do that through CIC. I'll allow my colleague to comment.
Mr. Gregory: My colleague was correct in terms of the domestic databases that we're using. We are also moving forward and will be verifying with the United States as to whether or not they have encountered a similar fingerprint in an immigration context. We won't be sharing the fingerprints with any other country, and we won't be providing any other country with access to our fingerprints. Previous witnesses perhaps have used those words in that sense. Perhaps this is a good opportunity to clarify what we will be doing.
With the United States, pursuant to the Canada-U.S. Immigration Information Sharing Treaty signed in 2012, and pursuant to domestic regulations written specifically for this purpose, we will be using fingerprints that we collect from applicants to query the U.S. immigration fingerprint system to see if the United States has encountered that fingerprint before in an immigration context. As soon as the print has queried the U.S. system, it will automatically be deleted, whether there is a match in the U.S. system or not. It's being used to ask, "Have you met this print before? If so, what identity is associated with that print in your country?'' We immediately get back, "Yes, we know that print, but when we encountered that print when this person visited our country two years ago they were called John.'' We can then immediately look at our application form to see if this person is using the same identity or whether they've acquired an alias since then and are now trying to fraudulently obtain entry into our country using a different identity. The U.S. will also tell us whether or not that person engaged in anything contrary to immigration law while they were in the United States. We can use that information to inform our own independent and sovereign decision about the person's admissibility into Canada.
I do want to be clear, Mr. Chair. We are not sharing the fingerprints with any other country. We are sharing immigration information — as we have, for example, with the Americans for some time now — when there's a need and when it's justified, for example, when someone has gone to that country and has broken the law and is now trying to come to our country despite our having asked those questions on our application forms. The biometrics themselves will not be shared, and no other country has access in any way to what Brendan is taking care of down the way at the RCMP building.
Senator Campbell: What would happen if the person coming into the country is not from the United States? Let's say they're from France. Is there any way of checking with the French database, or do you check with the French database to find out if this person has any criminal record or associations, that type of thing?
Mr. Gregory: That's not something that we're doing, and it's not something that we contemplate doing through this legislation or through the expansion of the program. We do and have for many years, on a case-by-case basis, asked for applicants to give us a certificate from the country that they're from to show that they don't have a criminal record when we think that might be the right thing to do, but we have no plans to use the biometrics that we collect from an applicant to go back to the source country to see if there's information there.
Senator Campbell: A concern was expressed by the previous witnesses about refugees and people seeking asylum. Would the process be any different for somebody seeking asylum or refugee status than for anybody else attempting to come into Canada?
Mr. Gregory: Someone who makes an asylum claim, who is seeking protection from within the country, has left wherever it is they feel they're being persecuted and has made their way to this country through whatever means. When someone makes a refugee claim in this country, we now take their fingerprints as part of the process of identifying who they are. In this particular population, they sometimes don't have the same kind of identity verification or documentation that a visitor from Western Europe might have and, as a previous witness to this committee, I think, has suggested, they sometimes travel using false identities because of the circumstances. Using fingerprints as well as whatever documents they may or may not have does help to identify them, but of course, Mr. Chair, that's not information that would ever be shared with whatever country they're seeking protection from. For any kind of paperwork that we have on this, whether it's the Immigration Information Sharing Treaty or our own regulations, it's very clear that that type of information could never be shared with the information from which they're seeking protection. That's something we take seriously here in this country and in the department.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Thank you for your presentations. Privacy is all fine and good. I'm coming at it differently. What we have seen in instances examining border security and defence is that Canada tends to have silos of information that are not shared where appropriate. I'm a little concerned. Can you reassure me that we're not being overzealous in the privacy area and not protecting the interests of Canadian citizens by sharing some of this information where it needs to be shared? I'm thinking strictly about security and things like that.
Mr. Gregory: The reason we collect biometrics from certain applicants, and from an expanded number of those applicants in the years to come, is to help confirm their identity, to ensure that those people haven't previously committed a crime in the country, to help in some cases to ensure that they're not applying to come to this country using a new and false identity. Those are the primary purposes for why we're collecting this. We stick to those primary purposes. Where we can identify a significant and justifiable reason to share information with other departments, we can pursue that. The only such area that we've identified to date and the only such area that we've allowed for a secondary use is if the RCMP takes fingerprints from someone in the process of conducting an investigation into a crime that's punishable in this country. If that fingerprint matches against a fingerprint that we store from one of our clients, then we can make the name, date of birth and gender of that fingerprint available to the RCMP for the purposes of that investigation; or, when the RCMP has fingerprints from someone who is deceased and they are trying to identify this person, if those fingerprints match to one of our clients we will share the name, date of birth and gender with the RCMP for the purposes of identifying someone who otherwise can't be identified due to the circumstances. That's the only secondary use that we allow for now. Any other secondary use would be a serious thing and would have to be considered, depending on the business case and on the matters, and authority would have to be given for any type of secondary use. As of now, there is no such authority, and the government is not seeking any such authority.
Senator Stewart Olsen: Can you explain to me then how anyone would know to ask you to run something through your database? I am assuming you store the data, but when someone would ask for a fingerprint search that would come to the RCMP, are you saying that there's a whole bunch of silos and some can't be searched and some can be searched? Is that what's happening?
Mr. Gregory: I'll try to answer this. The immigration information is kept separately. It's not readily accessible by anyone other than immigration authorities. However, if the RCMP or other law enforcement agency in the country collects a fingerprint from a crime scene or someone they have arrested whom they cannot identify, that fingerprint, as I understand it, comes into the RCMP for verification, as fingerprints would normally come in as police officers do their work around the country. If that matches against a print that we've taken for immigration purposes, then there are regulations in this country that allow the RCMP to share basic biographical information — name, date of birth, gender — with the enforcement officer.
Senator Stewart Olsen: How does it get there? Does a fingerprint that the RCMP may take at a scene and runs automatically go through the ones you have stored?
Mr. Gregory: Yes.
Mr. Heffernan: Yes, it does. What happens is it hits, and the law enforcement agency that submitted the information or the print is automatically given a response with the information it's allowed to receive, but in that it also says, "This is an immigration file; please call this number.'' This is the immigration number or CBSA, because it is of interest to them. It doesn't say what; it doesn't say anything else. It just says, "If you want to follow up on this, call this number at CBSA.'' The law enforcement agency doesn't have to.
In order to mitigate that gap, if they choose not to or they miss that, we provide reports to CBSA that say this many fingerprints hit, whether it be in the criminal record database or refugee or immigration database, here is the information on it; this is the agency that queried it. If it's important to you, contact that police agency.
There are two areas in which notification is given where the investigative components of the respective agencies have the opportunity to do some outreach, determine what the nature of the information is and whether or not it is relevant. It is available.
Senator Lang: As clarification for the record, what is the number, roughly, coming into this country of people who are either foreign students, temporary workers, or immigrants and refugees? Isn't that closer to 450,000 a year on average? I know it fluctuates, but I want to get the magnitude of the numbers coming into this country. Am I in the ballpark there?
Mr. Gregory: Mr. Chair, was the question students, workers, refugees?
Senator Lang: Yes, the total. It gets confusing. You have immigrants who are formally coming into the country, students are coming into the country, refugees obviously coming into this country, and we have temporary workers. I just want for everybody to understand the volume of work that's required. Could you give me the ballpark figure?
Mr. Gregory: I can start with figures that are fresh in my head and see if my colleagues can fill in the blanks.
Senator Lang: I just want a ballpark. I won't hold you to it.
Mr. Gregory: We anticipate that two years from now — that's two or three years from now when this will be implemented — we will be fingerprinting 2.9 million people. That will constitute all people making a temporary resident visa application: all students, all workers and all refugees. The 2.9 million doesn't include people who can travel to this country visa-free, which is a larger number of people: the Western Europeans, Japanese and populations like that.
In terms of students, workers, refugees and visa-required visitors, by 2018 we will be looking at 2.9 million, so that number would be a little less than that now.
Senator Lang: I want to be more specific here. Per year we're looking at the influx into this country in one manner or another in those categories in the neighbourhood of 400,000 to 450,000, maybe 500,000, on the average, as opposed to a total of 2.9 million; is that correct? I think we get confused on these numbers.
Ms. MacNeil: Certainly we would have to come back to you on the specific numbers as far as people who actually come. I have an additional statistic that just on visas in 2014 there were approximately 1.4 million applications. That's not people necessarily arriving, but those are people applying, to give an order of magnitude.
Senator Lang: If you could bring us back for information here, what I'm trying to get at — maybe I'm not being clear — is people who are formally coming into this country for one reason or another, whether it is for immigration, temporary student, temporary workers or refugees. On the average, what is the total coming to the country? They are not here as visitors but are coming to live here in one manner or another. There's a distinct difference.
Ms. MacNeil: We would have to determine that number.
Senator Lang: It's important that people understand the magnitude of the numbers that are coming in.
The other area that I just want to clarify for the record is that we're looking at the purpose of entering this country and the biometrics. My question is on the exit. Is the department contemplating a system for the purposes of exiting the country?
Mr. Gregory: Thank you for the question. The department is not considering doing biometric checks on exit.
Senator Lang: Right now, for the purpose of exiting, we don't really have an exit system in place for the purposes of the border; is that correct?
Andrew Lawrence, Director, Traveller Transformation, Air Mode Division, Programs Branch, Canada Border Services Agency: Under the Beyond the Border Action Plan, Canada is implementing a four-phase approach to the establishment of an exit regime. The first and second phases were implemented in June 2013. That entailed a reciprocal information exchange along the land border.
Senator Lang: This is with the United States?
Mr. Lawrence: With the United States. The subsequent phases, three and four, require legislative and regulatory amendments. They have not yet been instituted. The third phase will fold in Canadian and U.S. citizens. The fourth phase is the outbound collection of commercial airline manifests.
Senator Lang: Presently we don't have an exit program. We're working towards that in one manner or another?
Mr. Lawrence: Correct.
Senator Lang: I want to go to another area, if I could, and that's the use of all data information. What I don't quite understand here is we have a system where if I'm a criminal in Canada and I've got a fingerprint, then you obviously can cross-check and you've got me as a Canadian or as someone in the country. We have roughly 40,000 people, I understand, or at least estimated to be in this country, and we don't know where or who they are. That's another issue in itself.
I don't quite understand. If we have a terrorist in France who has their fingerprints and the authorities have their fingerprints but we don't know enough to ask the question whether or not we should run his fingerprints, how are we going to catch this guy? The senator asked where you're going to run it. I'm going back to this database that we have with the protocols on privacy and security. It would seem to me that we should be working on a system where, when somebody applies, that fingerprint goes throughout the databases, and if there's a match, then the country they're coming into is notified.
The Chair: With regard to the question, it takes it beyond the actual nature of the act, as I read it. The senator is asking a question about what might be possible as opposed to what the act specifies, in particular with regard to the collection of data.
If you have a comment that can clarify the issue for the senator, please do. We won't go down that road extensively.
Mr. Gregory: No, there are no plans at this time to proceed with a system of that nature.
Mr. Heffernan: Senator, perhaps to ease a bit of your concern, outside of the immigration functionality of everything, just from a purely criminal investigation or a national security investigation, there are mechanisms where we share biographic information with law enforcement agencies over the course of an investigation. Through Interpol, we have protocols that are guarded as well, but there are opportunities to share information if there's a known threat. If intelligence is coming to this country, we could share information on the criminal investigation side of things.
Senator Lang: But we have to know he's coming.
The Chair: Well, again, senator, with respect, you are getting into speculative areas. The issue is the act and what the data can be used for, and I think we're covering that.
Senator Wallace: Mr. Gregory, in your comments you referred to the significant part of the rationale for the use of biometrics in the immigration screening process, which was a result of the increase, as you referred to, in the sophistication in identity fraud. I'm wondering if you can tell us in real-world terms what your department is encountering in terms of this sophistication in identity fraud.
Mr. Gregory: Thank you for the question. It is an area that gives us some difficulty because we do our best to identify when someone is applying to come to the country with a fraudulent identity. We catch as many such people as possible, and perhaps we don't catch all of them because some fraudsters are successful in what they're trying to do. We see documents that are false, such as false passports. We see passports that are real but that have been doctored or altered to display somebody else's identity, or the identity information on the passport has somehow been changed. We see legitimate passports that are being held and used for travel by the non-legitimate owner of the passport. So there are different ways to go about doing it.
We also see false documents that are of better quality than in the past. As we do, so do the criminals have access to better technologies for printing such documents, for finding the purveyors of such documents and for colluding to get such documents over the Internet. So it's easier for people to find others who might be experts in document fraud. While we're always trying to produce travel documents that are world-class — and we have very good ones in this country — people coming to our country from other countries are using travel documents of whatever country they're coming from. The quality of travel documents globally is inconsistent, always getting better, but it's always a catch-up for people who would take advantage of a travel document from a country that's of poor quality or perhaps that's easier to counterfeit than a travel document from any other given country.
Those are the different ways that people can go about it. In locations around the world, we see examples of all of those different ways on a regular basis.
Senator Wallace: We heard earlier from representatives of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Ms. Pillay — you may have heard her testimony — referred a number of times to false matches that have resulted from the use of biometrics, which to me would seem to call into question the reliability of biometrics as a reliable identification tool.
Can you tell us anything about the frequency of false matches?
Mr. Gregory: I can tell you, senator, that this new tool is a very powerful one. The group in our department responsible for identity management is very happy to now have this tool at their disposal because it's a better tool to identify someone than asking them what their name is. It's also a more unique tool. There are many people in the world that share the same name and were born on the same day in the same country. We are replacing a not very effective tool with an incredibly effective one. That tool, while not always perfect every time, is much more perfect many more times than the old tool, which was name, date of birth, gender, nationality.
To the extent there may ever be a case of a false match, it's also not something that happens in a vacuum. We still have people involved in processing applications. We still have results that come back that may not make sense because something doesn't seem possible, such as this person has never left their country or this person is much older than this person.
Even if there ever were to be a "false match,'' I don't think the system we have designed would ever allow us to proceed on that one bit of information when there's so much other information available to us in the application form or from speaking to the applicant and asking them to explain how on earth it could be that they committed a crime in Red Deer in 1974 when they were still in diapers in another country at that time.
Obviously, it's something we take very seriously. We have spent time to design our system so that it's just one tool, one new very powerful tool, but it's not something we hope would allow us to disadvantage someone just because of the very small potential of a false match. There are other questions that would come up, and we would be able to clear things up, one would hope.
Senator Wallace: Has your department done any studies or do you have any data on the frequency of false matches? I hear what you're saying; it's better than what we've got and what we've been using in the past.
The issue has been put on the table by some that have appeared before us. I just want to have a sense, is this an issue Canadians should have any concern about in considering the reliability of biometrics?
Mr. Gregory: I don't want to use the term "concern'' because I think it might be too strong a word, but it's something that the department takes seriously and that the department has thought about when designing the rest of the system.
Could there be a false match during the application stage? I have seen literature as well from people who have studied this area and who say it's possible and say it has happened, but that information would be provided to a visa officer who would then have a conversation with the applicant to determine the accuracy.
Could there ever be one on arrival? If so, there are CBSA officers in airports, and they would have a discussion and figure out what has happened. It's not an automatic go back to the start, so to speak.
One thing is the technology, and the other is the processes that we have developed around the technology. This new technology is just one new tool, but it's not something that makes decisions in a vacuum all on its own.
Mr. Heffernan: I think there might be some confusion with respect to the name-based data where there are false opportunities. With the biometric data, a one-to-one search on two fingerprints is a hundred per cent accurate. There may be issues with the collection of it or whatever, but when it comes into our system, the system will do that search. The safeguards and the algorithms that are built into the system will identify — just to explain a bit, there's a threshold.
If the system itself can't determine that there's an actual match, it kicks it out to exception handling, and a highly trained fingerprint expert, a human intervention, does that comparison. If that person, using their skills and the tools at their availability, can't make the determination because of poor quality or whatever, it's not a match, and we say that we cannot make a positive identification. Unless the system within that threshold kicks out, it will say the information below this certain threshold is not a match; it's gone. If it's above here, it's a positive match and it will come back as a positive match. If it's within that little area there, it kicks out to exception handling where a human will look at it and do that analysis. If the human can't be a hundred per cent confirmed, then it's a non-match. We err on the side of caution.
From the biometric perspective, CIC is getting a 100 hundred per cent return on matches. If we say it's a match, it's a match.
Senator Wallace: That's very helpful. That's the reassurance I was looking for. Thank you very much.
Senator Ngo: The CIC receives a minimum of 250,000 immigrants per year, not counting temporary workers and so on. Just for the immigrants coming to Canada, let's say 250,000 is the number. Are the CIC and the RCMP retaining the biometric data of those immigrants once they become citizens or apply for Canadian citizenship?
Mr. Gregory: That's a very good question. The answer is no. Any print we have now on a third-country national, as soon as they become a citizen, if that's what they end up doing, their biometric information will be deleted from the system and not stored, retained, kept or ever used ever again.
Senator Ngo: If that's the case, how do you communicate with them to let them know that their biometric data has been deleted or whatever? How do you do that? Would you communicate with them or just simply do it on your own? They will assume that their biometric data is still there; right?
Mr. Gregory: No, we will not be writing to the individual to tell them that we have deleted their fingerprints from the system. That's not something we're currently doing.
Senator Ngo: By sharing the information between the CIC, the RCMP and the CBSA, so far, of the numbers of applications coming into Canada, are you expecting to be able to stop a greater number of fraudulent and unlawfully obtained temporary worker visa?
Mr. Gregory: Mr. Chair, I'm confident that we will, moving forward, be able to stop people that have previously been in this country, third-country nationals that have previously visited this country, committed a crime, and then returned to home. I'm confident we will be able to stop them from returning.
We're also confident that someone who has previously been here using one identity, if they're subject to biometric screening, will not be able to return to the country using an entirely new identity. As we heard from the RCMP, the one-to-one matching is a powerful thing, and something technically that is doable now and that is already being done.
We do feel that taking a fingerprint and comparing it to prints we already have will stop people from returning that shouldn't be returning. Another point is that you lock the identity in so that in the future they must continue to use that same identity, even if they don't think that might help their chances.
The Chair: You have been very helpful to us.
First of all, we on the committee all need to understand the section that we are dealing with, which is legislation that extends an existing use application in the manner that the act has described and for the purposes that we have heard here this morning. It extends it in that category, and it changes existing legislation where redundancies exist as a result of this coming into force. Those are the principal issues that we are dealing with.
Our understanding of your testimony is that the biometric extent that we are talking about at this time is the use of fingerprints. If I understood your testimony, Mr. Gregory, at this point, there are no plans to change beyond that. Do I understand both those correctly?
Mr. Gregory: We are also taking a digital photo of the client and storing that photo. We are using that photo to visually compare the person who is being examined upon entry with a passport and the photo taken, but we're not using it in the sense that a facial recognition algorithm will be applied to do that matchup.
The Chair: There's not a facial algorithm built into the storage and comparison system all the way through?
Mr. Gregory: That's right. We have the photo; we're collecting the photo, storing the photo, using it at ports of entry and doing nothing further with it.
The Chair: That's in the same sense as a photo in a passport. Is that correct?
Mr. Gregory: Correct.
The Chair: You just answered the question by saying that the digitalized fingerprints of applicants for immigration are not maintained and stored in the central database once the file is complete.
Mr. Gregory: Sort of. What I was trying to say, Mr. Chair, is that once one of our previous immigration clients, a third-country national who is here temporarily, once they become a citizen, we will immediately be destroying that biometric record and will no longer be keeping it.
We do retain the fingerprints of our clients for a time, so that during the person's visit in the country that fingerprint will remain on file and for a couple years afterwards before we delete it.
The Chair: So eventually on becoming a citizen and after the checks have been completed in the process used, the digitalized print is deleted from the system. Is that correct?
Mr. Gregory: Yes, sir, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: On the other hand, should there be any criminal activity or any issues dealing with the laws of Canada subsequent to admission into Canada, they would enter under a different category; is that correct?
Mr. Gregory: Sorry, Mr. Chair, I'm not sure I understood the question.
The Chair: Let's suppose the individual is granted admission into Canada and then commits a crime in this country.
Mr. Gregory: Yes. During their temporary visit to the country, if they commit a crime, we would hope that the match would be made and the fingerprint would be used to help identify who they are. That's correct, sir.
The Chair: That would be stored within the system; is that correct?
Mr. Gregory: Yes.
The Chair: Do you have a point of clarification, Senator Lang?
Senator Lang: I want to ask a general question about the information put forward and the privacy protocols put in place. Once you have that information, what is the basic principle behind deleting all this information after a period of time?
Mr. Gregory: The government has not decided to store fingerprints of citizens who have not committed a crime. It is not an immigration matter that is the subject of this legislation.
Mr. Heffernan: Mr. Chair, if I could add some clarity to that, in the context of the immigration fingerprints, my colleagues are absolutely correct in that at a certain purge date, they're automatically removed or at a date set by CIC or on a date they become Canadian citizens. We have a one-day service-level agreement where we will remove them from the system. They're gone, period, non-retrievable ever.
Now they're a Canadian citizen. If they commit a crime thereafter, then the enforcement agency that arrests that individual and charges them will submit the prints. They're now in the criminal database. They're no longer in the immigration, but they're in the criminal database, and they'll remain there given the retention periods and so on that exist.
The Chair: I understood that part going into the question. My question was about the period of time between their admission into the country and becoming a Canadian citizen, should a crime be committed.
Mr. Heffernan: Then they're entered on the criminal database. If they commit a crime then, it is searched against the immigration file. Information is provided to CIC, the fact that it hit, and it is there. That's part of the ongoing security.
The Chair: I understand. Once the fingerprint is taken in a criminal situation, it is then stored.
Mr. Heffernan: In the criminal database.
The Chair: Thank you. That was the question. I wanted to be sure that was covered in that regard. Thank you very much.
Finally, Mr. Heffernan, I think you described the process exceedingly well. If I can try to sum it up quickly, the fingerprint is taken. It is digitalized and transferred by secure system, as you described in detail. It is received and stored and can only be reactivated to a useful comparative tool by the — why am I forgetting the term for the mathematical — algorithm. Of all the people that shouldn't be forgetting that. For a chemist, that's a big term. The algorithm that will transfer it back into an active, useful comparative tool. We have the collection and digitalization, transferred in a secure system, stored digitally, and only resuscitated or brought back to life through the algorithm at a time that it is required through our system.
Mr. Heffernan: Correct. Just to clarify, when you're saying "digitalized,'' it's encrypted and then decrypted back at our front door. Then it goes through the massive security mechanism inside. When it's decrypted in the first instance, that's when it's a fingerprint again.
The Chair: I was using "digitalized'' in the sense of the zeros and the ones.
Mr. Heffernan: Yes, correct.
The Chair: It transfers it into that data.
I think we have covered this reasonably well. You've answered the issues. My final question to you is this: With regard to the section of the act which is 10.02(d), circumstances in which a person is not required to provide certain biometric information, which is setting up the regulations on this, I assume that the regulations will cover the issue that was raised by the earlier witnesses, and that is that for fingerprints that are not possible to be collected through physical or other difficulty, those issues will be covered in the regulations; is that correct?
Mr. Gregory: Yes, sir. There will be some detail there in terms of people who — it is true that there is a very small percentage of people, elderly people from developing countries in particular, who sometimes have poor-quality fingerprints. When the fingerprints simply cannot be taken, we take it, and there's no information coming from that in terms of a match, so the officers decide and use their discretion to nevertheless accept an application and proceed as such.
The Chair: Right, exactly. My point is that that will be covered in the regulations that will follow the bill.
Mr. Gregory: Yes, sir.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I would now like to thank you very much for appearing and helping us to understand this piece of legislation. I will gavel the meeting to a conclusion in a moment, but I want to remind my colleagues at the table that you are to remain for an in camera session in which we will give advice for the writing of a report on what we have heard here.
(The committee continued in camera.)