Feb 13, 2018 – Canada is to trial a new smartphone app named Known Traveller Digital Identity aimed at allowing travellers to cross borders faster if they create a profile and upload detailed personal information.
In a joint venture with the Netherlands, travellers will be asked to submit details for pre-screening including vaccination record, bank statements and proof of university education.
An initial pilot will see the app focus solely on travel between Canada and the Netherlands, but if successful the service will be rolled out globally by 2020.
Canada already has a trusted traveller agreement with the U.S. called Nexus. Much of the detail of the Known Travel Digital Identity plan mirrors that of the Nexus arrangement.
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Such arrangements are being worked on as the future of international travel, given traffic is expected to jump to 1.8 billion arrivals per year by 2030.
The pilot program and figures were announced during the recent World Economic Forum in Davos.
Biometric and facial recognition technology is also expected to be used as part of the new system.
Users will be able to build the strength of their profiles the more they travel, effectively becoming ‘more trusted’.
Critics are concerned the app will create a two-tier travel system with long queues for those who choose not to sign up.
Immigration Detention Alternatives
Meanwhile, Ottawa is investing in a range of alternatives to limit the number of people being held in Canada immigration detention.
The Canada Border Services Agency is investing in a state-of-the-art phone system that includes voice recognition and the ability to pinpoint a person’s location via GPS. The new system is expected to be launched in April 2018.
It is part of several measures being introduced to reduce the reliance on detention, which can see immigrants detained for indefinite periods without trial in Canadian provincial jails.
Canada’s use of jails and the indefinite detention period has drawn criticism from the human rights wing of the United Nations, with the majority of its peers, including the U.S. and the U.K., placing limits on how long people can be detained without trial.
The most recent available figures show more than 6,500 people were held in immigration detention in 2015-16, 200 of them children.
Also, central to the effort to move away from detention will be a community monitoring program operated by charities including the Salvation Army and the John Howard Society of Canada, also set to begin in April.
Why Are Immigrants Detained?
Immigrants are detained if:
- They are deemed dangerous.
- They are a flight risk.
- They are unable to prove their identity.
The new Voice Reporting System will allow subjects to check in with the CBSA by phone, with the computer system able to authenticate their identity via voice recognition, and their location via GPS. It means officers will be able to keep track of subjects who may otherwise have been able to disappear within Canada.
At the same time, people who are not deemed a security risk will be able to move around freely while their immigration cases are being worked on.
Critics point out that even the best voice recognition technology is nowhere near 100 per cent accurate. The CBSA in its tender document asks for accuracy of 60 per cent or higher, based on a recording made before the subject is released. The agency does require the technology to include a number of measures to prevent spoofing.
Federal Government Framework
Ottawa released a framework aimed at overhauling the immigration detention system in 2017.
The CBSA’s ‘National Immigration Detention Framework’ signalled a significant change in Canada’s immigration detention policy, which it is now putting into action
Using provincial jails to hold immigration detainees is highly controversial. Support for ending the use of jails gathered pace after three deaths in 2016 and 15 in total since 2000.
Human rights groups have also raised concerns over the detention of migrant children.
More than 100 senior Ontario lawyers in 2016 signed an open letter to Yasir Naqvi, Ontario Community Safety and Correctional Services Manager, expressing concerns that detainees are having their basic human rights violated. Health professionals have also gathered together to sign a similar open letter.
Spending Plan
The federal government announced in August 2016 it would spend $138 million on improving Canada’s immigration detention system.
New, bigger holding centres in Laval and Vancouver will command most of the spending, as the government looks to reduce the number of detainees housed in provincial jails.
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