:
Madam Chair, I do appreciate the comments from the minister, and I do appreciate your comments as chair, but I think it's important to recognize that all political parties have the opportunity to invite guests.
You cannot tell me that the health and well-being of refugees is not relevant to this particular committee. Many refugees who come to our country are in need of health care services.
I don't want to, in any way, tell a witness what he can or cannot present. I'm sure he would have been made aware of what the committee is dealing with. I'm not going to censure his comments. I think we should just continue. It's a 10-minute presentation. When we had a witness here on Monday who only talked about multiculturalism, I didn't say, “On a point of order, let's be relevant”, and then dictate exactly what the chair just finished dictating. In fact, if we forced every presenter to adhere to what the chair just dictated, I suspect there would have been numerous points of order.
I don't think Mr. Tyndall should be singled out in any fashion whatsoever. He should be allowed to make his presentation. If you don't believe it's relevant and important to ask questions, I'll be more than happy to take the Conservatives' questions. We have two witnesses here. You don't even have to ask your questions of that particular witness.
I would suggest that it is in order and that we continue.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to emphasize a couple of points. When we ask witnesses to come before the committee...it's important to recognize that you have 12 members of Parliament sitting in a very formal room. That, itself, can be somewhat intimidating to some witnesses. I'm not suggesting that Mr. Tyndall or other witnesses are intimidated per se by it, but it's something we should at least be aware of.
I don't believe that it is in fact appropriate for us to start every meeting dictating what we expect witnesses to be providing comment on.
If there's a government policy that has been made that in essence takes away health care services, for example, from refugees, does that have any sort of a risk factor? I would suggest to you that it could be a risk factor.
I don't want to tell a presenter what he or she can or cannot present. We're affording the people the opportunity to present before this committee on what they believe is important to them in relation to immigration and citizenship. In this particular case we're studying, as has been pointed out, we're hoping for a detailed report to be able to provide recommendations to the minister.
At the end of the day, if we believe there is a need to have a recommendation that says that reinstating health care services or anything of that nature will ultimately be better and improve the security of Canada, then we need to talk about it. If you have people who are denied the opportunity to be able to get some sort of medical treatment, for example, and they end up falling on the other side of the law as a direct result of that, I think that is something that is worthy of being able to talk about.
I'll leave it at that. I would hope—
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Throughout the world, biometric technologies are used in border security to varying degrees. A panoply of machine-readable travel documents are increasingly prevalent, particularly among so-called trusted or registered traveller programs, as well as in permanent resident, green card, and visa schemes.
Even in these cases, serious questions regarding the continued potential insecurity of breeder documents tend to be ignored, and the dangerous consequences of social sorting are deliberately avoided. Social sorting refers to the manner in which increasing amounts of digital information on individuals begin to create a so-called data double, which, although desirable to marketers and law enforcement, has shown to be less effective in predicting risk and more effective in predicting your next purchase on Amazon.
Still, some jurisdictions have taken biometrics to a much higher level, such as the development at the University of Arizona of AVATAR—the automated virtual agent for truth assessments in real time—which is effectively something the size of an ATM machine and replaces a border agent, using artificial intelligence and biometrics to carry out a typical initial inspection.
In all these cases, there are significant questions that remain unanswered and relatively unexplored about biometrics.
Using these technologies as well as various other forms of surveillance have significant problems in terms of public buy-in. Certainly part of the problem is the lack of public participation in the process and the adoption of these technologies. It is often unclear why particular biometric technologies are adopted: what makes a specific biometric technology apt for a particular problem?
Like many tools, they oversimplify complex political, social, and legal networks according to a new classification of biometrically enrolled subjects.
There is what Joseph Pugliese refers to as “infrastructural diffusion”, where certain norms of gender, ethnicity, and socio-economic status are bred into the technologies themselves. A prime example would be the failure of facial recognition biometrics on African Americans tested at Miami-Dade airport.
The development and application of biometric technologies tends not to focus simply on helping to resolve with greater certainty “who” you are, but, with the increasing interconnection with other pieces of personal digital data, determines “what” you are. Are we aware and comfortable with the way in which this transforms our manage of the border and the mobile subjects who intend to cross it?
Beyond deeply important ethical, political, and social issues, there are straightforward problems with biometric technologies that deserve consideration.
A recent study at the University of Notre Dame, published in Nature magazine, found that the so-called false-match rate increased 153% over three years.
A five-year study released in September by the National Research Council in Washington, D.C., labelled biometrics as “inherently fallible”: they only provide probabilistic results and not yes and no answers.
We are in dire need of increased research on the biological underpinnings of human distinctiveness. How stable the actual physiological characteristics are that the technology is designed to measure remains in serious question.
The AVATAR program, which is now being tested along the Arizona-Mexico border, biometrically measures 15 of 500 possible cues, which is lower than the 5% threshold set by the developers themselves. Happily for them, politicians are more excited about the gadgets than reflecting on the science they themselves have laid out.
There are some important questions we need to ask. What precisely do we expect these technologies to solve? What are the specific problems we believe they will address? Is the government willing to invest in public and intellectual engagement to consider seriously the specific efficacy, efficiency, and inherent problems associated with the use of these technologies? The research demonstrates that the industry is not compelled to do so on its own.
In conclusion, first, the signing of the Beyond the Border agreement already puts into policy what Nick Vaughan-Williams has referred to as the border not being “where it is supposed to be”. It is clear that this agreement will compel Canada to engage on a variety of bilateral fronts on the management and enforcement of mobility and circulation, but the extent to which this has occurred with little significant public consultation, and to what extent it requires the total adoption of these specific biometric technologies, may still be something that is salvageable.
Two, the increased reliance on biometric technologies together with other forms of digital surveillance move us away from a question of who the person is to what kind of person this is. This significantly alters how the border operates.
Three, the United States and Europe have multiple skilled and effective independent and non-governmental institutions devoted to evaluating border security—the practices, strategies, and technologies to be applied therein.
Canada has none.
The absence of this capacity will do little to enable policy innovation, effectively evaluate the efficacy and efficiency of strategies to secure the border and enhance mobility, or move us away from being little more than reactive to the foreign innovations of other policies.
Thank you.
First off, I'd like to thank the committee for the invitation. It's a new experience for me. Building up to my talk, that's another new experience. Thank you for that.
As a bit of background, I'm a physician at the Ottawa Hospital with expertise in public health and HIV. I completed my medical school and internal medicine specialty training at McMaster University, followed by a fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Manitoba. I went to the Harvard School of Public Health and completed a doctoral degree in epidemiology, and through this training I spent about four years in Kenya doing HIV research.
I took a job at the University of British Columbia in 1999 and spent about 11 years looking at HIV prevention strategies among marginalized populations, including drug users and refugees.
I moved to the University of Ottawa in 2010 to become the head of infectious diseases, with the goal of expanding the public health mandate of the division.
The clinic I am in charge of at the Ottawa Hospital has a large refugee caseload. As would be expected at an infectious disease clinic, we deal with infections. The biggest threats to refugee health, at least on arrival to Canada, are infections, most notably HIV and tuberculosis. On April 25, when Minister Kenney announced the cutbacks to federal health funding, the clinic physicians were in shock.
Currently, every major health care organization across Canada has spoken out in opposition and rallies against these cuts. Although the government has remained steadfast in its public announcements around the cuts, there have been a number of changes and rollbacks that have just added to the confusion.
We are now anticipating a list of designated countries of origin that will further limit access to health care for some refugee claimants.
There are many reasons that these cuts to IFH are bad for refugees, bad for health care, and bad for Canada. However, today I will focus on public health and why limiting access to health care creates a real threat to our collective public health security.
Of all the issues being considered by this committee, public health and the spread of disease should be recognized as a very serious threat to our security. It has been stated over and over by the Minister of Immigration and his staff that infectious diseases that are considered a threat to public health and safety will continue to be covered under the new IFH plans.
However, for all their resilience and optimism, refugees are generally scared and uncertain about their immediate future when they arrive in Canada. For many refugees, western medicine is foreign and unproven. It is only in the hands of skilled health care workers over multiple visits that trust is built and medical recommendations can be followed.
There is much more to treating HIV than providing pills.
One of the biggest health failures in confronting the global HIV epidemic has been a failure to appreciate the importance of providing a comprehensive set of health care supports for people who are HIV positive. In the United States, a study presented at the world AIDS conference this summer showed that of the estimated one million people infected, only 75% knew they were HIV positive, only 50% were receiving HIV care, and only 28% were successfully taking their HIV medications.
This is exactly what happens when people are not engaged in consistent health care. For the IFH program to continue to pay for the cost of HIV medications but fail to support the very care that makes successful treatment possible undermines the whole program. With these cuts, we are at risk of losing the patients who are currently engaged in comprehensive care, and we are much less likely to engage new patients in HIV treatment. We currently have the tools and expertise to diagnose and treat communicable diseases and limit their spread. However, if the patients are driven away and disengaged from health care, there is no way to identify infections and provide the necessary care, treatment, and education.
Tuberculosis is another serious threat to public health security in Canada. Unlike HIV, which will usually be picked up through mandatory HIV testing prior to arrival in Canada, tuberculosis is often asymptomatic and very difficult to diagnose. In many developing countries, the actual infection is picked up during childhood and lies dormant. The only way to diagnose and treat tuberculosis is to have consistent clinical care and to provide diagnostic testing at the first signs of cough, fever, or other more subtle symptoms.
The continued provision of medications to treat tuberculosis through the IFH is a small part of the necessary tools for early detection and the prevention of spread to others. The cutbacks will have a dramatic impact on the ability of public health to protect Canadians from the spread of imported tuberculosis.
There are certainly other threats to public health beyond HIV and tuberculosis; however, these examples serve to illustrate the very real threat to public health and security resulting from cuts to IFH. It is imperative that refugees are offered comprehensive health care to successfully integrate into Canadian society.
IFH funding provides a critical safety net as refugee claimants await the decision about whether they can stay in Canada or not. For communicable diseases, even a few weeks can be critical, and if the process drags on for years—which has been the case for a number of patients in our clinic—then the threat of spreading infectious diseases to others, both inside and outside their immediate community, is very real.
It is very predictable that we will start to see people defaulting on their HIV treatment and presenting with advanced HIV, and we will see women giving birth to HIV-positive babies. In addition, we will see people presenting to emergency departments with advanced tuberculosis, and there will be cases of tuberculosis transmitted within Canada from refugees. These are not far-fetched scenarios. In fact, they were happening before any cutbacks to IFH.
I feel that the cuts to refugee health care are short-sighted and will directly erode the public health care system that we have in Canada. In my view, this has a direct impact upon Canadian security.
Thank you.
:
It's not as effective as, shall we say, human intelligence. My research has not indicated that there's any reason we ought to simply be jumping on board the use of biometrics.
I'm well aware that law enforcement agencies tend to be reasonably happy with it, until you get to the sort of high point of it, which I would say is what the AVATAR program at the University of Arizona has come up with, because then it starts taking their jobs away. You clearly and obviously have labour issues at that point.
But in terms of gathering information, it's good to gather information. What you do with it, how interoperable those bits of information are.... I think there are obviously privacy questions as well as questions of reliability. For the most part, I feel that these biometric technologies are relatively under-studied. That's why we're only now getting some of the longer-term studies, which are what is useful.
At the moment, most of the research we get is from the manufacturers themselves, and I don't think I need to tell everyone that there could be problems with that.
:
Certainly the manufacturers and the biometrics have been tested by law enforcement agencies before they recommend them, but let's talk from a practical perspective.
You speak about human intelligence as being an alternative. If someone shows up at our border today—right now, as we speak—and says, “I want to come into your country”, there's an officer there who will be looking at and interviewing them as they are going through this process.
He doesn't know who you are; you could tell him anything. With a biometric, he can look you up in a computer, with your picture, possibly your iris scan, and your fingerprint, and he'll know exactly who you are.
Would that not be a useful tool for that intelligence officer?
It's not a question of coming in without having human interaction anyway. No one is saying that someone is going to walk to the border, walk into a booth, and the door will open and they'll get into Canada. There will be a person there who's going to be using that as a tool.
That's what the law enforcement people who presented before us testified: that it's an additional tool they could use to help them in the identification of an individual. The whole point of this is to ensure that we know the identities of individuals before they walk our streets, shop with our families, or are around our kids. We need to know who they are. That is the main thing they kept bringing up to us.
Do you not think that could be a useful tool for a CBSA agent at the airport or someone at the border to have in deciding whether they're going to allow someone into the country?
I'm going to direct my first couple of questions towards Dr. Tyndall.
I want to thank both of you for coming to make the presentation. I appreciated the presentation you made about public health. There isn't a greater area of security, for me, than public health. It's one that has no boundaries. So thank you for your presentation.
Often, when we sit around and think about security, we only think it means what happens at the border and that it's about deportation. But we know that security works both ways, and that we must ensure the safety and security of newcomers, especially vulnerable refugees. And security of health is very critical.
You've had first-hand experience, Dr. Tyndall, with treating refugees at the hospital. I'm interested in how the cuts to the interim federal health program for refugees are impacting their security.
Last week, Doctors for Refugee Care released a report that said:
Three months after dramatic cuts to federally funded refugee health care services took effect, the program that manages these services is marred by confusion, unnecessary costs, and compromised care.
The report goes on to detail dozens of cases and says that pregnant women and children are being particularly affected by the cuts.
In one particularly shocking example from the study:
A young female refugee claimant is 18 weeks pregnant as a result of a sexual assault while being used as a sexual slave. She has no IFH coverage to address the pregnancy.
Can you share with the committee any cases you are aware of and how the cuts are affecting the refugees you see?
:
Sure. Thank you very much.
The report that was submitted last week showed a number of cases. In Ottawa itself there are probably 50 people in the clinic with some IFH coverage. Many of the people we see are being treated for tuberculosis and HIV. As I mentioned, the treatment of these two infections is still protected, and people still get their pills.
Most of the people, then, have already had a relationship with us, and they continue to get their pills. What is problematic now, however, is other services that they need. They come to a clinic with hypertension, for instance, or some have diabetes. They're running into difficulties with getting these medications covered and they have no fallback.
So there are cases of people we're still following for their HIV who no longer get coverage for their other medications, which in some respects have everything to do with their HIV infection.
Picking out only the pills for their HIV is not enough.
:
I can also comment, as you were asking what happens to new patients coming, that doctors cannot be put in the position to be the border guards. People get to the clinic and seek medical attention long after all these safeguards have been put in place.
So part of our concern is that some of our tools are taken away from us through these cutbacks. People who come really need health care, and some of that health care can be very important to the community at large. They will not be able to access that any more.
As doctors, the program right now is in such disarray that we're only told to call Blue Cross and find out if this particular diagnostic procedure or drug could possibly be covered for a specific person. Obviously it takes hours to get that information back, and the person is there. Currently, as things change, it's a moving target, where most clinics now are in a very bad way when they see new patients come to them. I have no control over who comes to the clinic.
If they have a problem—in my case, an infectious disease problem—I feel, as a physician, it's my duty to provide them the best care that I can. Saying “I'll have to check to see if I can provide you with any care” is difficult.
:
Thanks for the question.
Obviously, I don't. As this issue goes further and further, we've been careful not to push it to exclude any possibility that we can at least get the value back in what we had. There is a whole movement that everybody should be treated exactly the same, that health is a basic human right and that this should be offered to everybody.
At this point in time, I think the IFH, as it was, doesn't go to that extent. I think strategically, even if that's ultimately what I would support, feeling very strongly that health is a human right, at this point the cutbacks have taken us so far away from that that we're trying to battle to at least get some basic coverage back.
I think it reflects very badly on Canada if we deny health care to people. I'm amazed at stories I read in the paper about animals being helped out. We would not deny health coverage to any Canadian, so—
Yes, I would stand behind those recommendations.
The application of risk management and the way that has occurred is very much connected to the deployment of these technologies, so I think examining that relationship is very important.
As these sorts of experiences tend to endlessly confirm for me, there is a quick reaction to looking at numbers that suggest that somehow biometrics are good, full stop. There are very rarely specifics ever given, in terms of a precise issue it will deal with at the border that is currently not dealt with sufficiently. I think that's a significant issue.
The other issue is that the public in general, and particularly those who inhabit border communities, often tend not to be terribly favourable in terms of wanting the use of these technologies.
In the NEXUS case, there's a reasonable enrollment because of lifestyle. But studies have shown—and there have been quite significant studies done on the Washington-B.C. border about this—that many people have chosen not to enrol in the NEXUS program, to stay in the lineups, simply for the fact that they have questions about the use of this technology and the way it can create this sort of “data double” issue, where a variety of pieces of data are linked together to create a persona that may or may not be a reasonable approximation of you.
Are we happy to make judgments on that basis, not to mention that increasingly data is demonstrating that these are not infallible technologies, by any stretch of the imagination?
When the designers of AVATAR themselves say their technology does not meet their own threshold, I think that's rather significant. But in that case, it's not significant to those willing to buy in to it.
We thank the vice-chair and the members of the committee for inviting us to appear before you once again. My name is George Platsis. I am a program director with the Centre of Excellence in Security, Resilience, and Intelligence at the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto.
With me today is one of our centre's senior distinguished faculty members, retired Rear Admiral Don Loren of the U.S. Navy.
Please note that our comments are our own today and do not reflect the views of any of the organizations we may be associated with.
The realities of the 21st century have shown us that technology has given access and ability to a larger number of actors, including small groups and individuals, all with differing intents and interests. The net result, even for a single actor, can have an asymmetric effect upon society.
Discussions focused on Canada's immigration policy, which are vast and broad, will define our ever-evolving Canadian identity, economic success, and security landscape. But for the purposes of this conversation and this session we will focus on a very narrow range of issues specifically related to intelligence-gathering capabilities and information handling, both domestically between departments and internationally with our partners and our allies.
Technology should be used as a tool, not as a crutch, and the foundation for any technology to protect our borders is intelligence. From information gathering to analysis to intelligence that is actionable, we need to ensure that the information we collect and analyze is kept confidential, maintains its integrity, and is made available only to those who have a legitimate use for it.
This issue is daunting in an inter-agency and international context, especially as organizations use differing levels of internal security protocols. Consider that on the issue of admissibility, upwards of 10 or more Canadian departments and various statutes could apply. Depending on the case, you have IRPA, the Security Offences Act, the National Defence Act, the CSIS Act, and the Aeronautics Act, just to name a few that could apply. In the example I just gave, CIC, the RCMP, CSIS, CSEC, and CATSA would all have some jurisdictional responsibility. And we have yet to consider our international possibilities.
In addition, the creation of Shared Services Canada has tasked it with streamlining more than 100 e-mail systems, 300 data centres, and more than 3,000 overlapping and uncoordinated electronic networks.
While this decision should reduce inefficiencies, there are other inherent risks associated with a fully integrated system. As we become more reliant on these systems to store personal information and make critical decisions, we also have a responsibility to harden these same systems, both from a technological perspective but also from a human-use perspective.
These same principles must also apply to more sensitive areas that fall outside the mandate and domain of Shared Services Canada; these relate to our national security. There's a very simple concept that we must never forget: you are only as strong as your weakest link.
Going forward, we must be able to assure the information we acquire and use. In an information-sharing context, this requires both human and technological safeguards. Furthermore, our own Canadian ability to gather, validate, and protect information from our uniquely Canadian vantage point benefits Canadian interests and intents as we go forward, so that we can make our own assessments that meet our own needs.
Ultimately, it should be sound information that acts as the basis for admission into Canada. We must be cognizant that, given that our systems and networks are interconnected, an information breach in one department may have an effect in many others, including upon the decision-making process for admissibility.
It is at this point that I would like to invite a very great friend of Canada, Admiral Don Loren, to share and give you the benefit of his experiences in these matters from an American and international perspective.
Thank you.
Madam Vice-Chair, members of the committee, thank you for having me here again. I'm a great friend of Canada, and it is at my colleague's request that I appear before you.
Please note that all the comments made today are my own and are not reflective of any organizations I may be affiliated with.
As noted in my previous testimony before this committee, I'm not here to address any laws in specific terms, as it is not my place as an American to do so. What I can offer is my perspective as the former deputy director for operations support at our National Counterterrorism Center. As the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Security Integration, I can offer my specific observations on issues of intelligence gathering, information sharing, particularly within the inter-agency and international context. I can also give you a view to assist you to define your own unique Canadian interests as they may relate to immigration policies.
The degree to which we can be proactive is the degree to which we both shall succeed or fail as we face the challenges that lie ahead for both our nations. Within that context, the challenges that both Canada and the United States face with respect to border security and immigration can only be resolved through both nations working together, as we have done in the air and missile defence of North America through NORAD.
The key to working together is to ensure that not only are the policies and programs implemented in both nations aligned, but that each nation is comfortable with the measures that are in place to address our customs and immigration challenges.
I can state that in my professional experience, addressing these challenges is not only about ensuring that the necessary equipment and resources are in place, but equally, if not more importantly, it's about ensuring that the intelligence and law enforcement information upon which decisions are based is sound.
For example, biometrics are often presented as a potential solution to solve many of the immigration issues we both experience, but it would be naïve to believe that implementing expensive technical solutions without the necessary intelligence to inform the technology is the sole answer.
Canada's membership in the Five Eyes provides access to significant amounts of information that can be used to better assess the potential risks posed by individuals attempting to enter the country. This information must be readily available to the appropriate decision-makers and shared across agencies, something that both of our nations can do better. Even if the information were made available and utilized properly, there are secondary and tertiary concerns that must be addressed before courses of action are undertaken.
For example, the security and assurance of the information must of course be protected. This means it is paramount that the infrastructure and architecture of the security and intelligence apparatuses used create a level of confidence amongst Canadian allies in order to have a more open flow of information, as this information will ultimately help ensure that only legitimate persons enter Canadian territory.
The strong relationship between Canada and the United States must always consider political dynamics that face our respective countries, as these same political dynamics could have significant impact on moving border and inter-agency initiatives forward. A mutual respect and understanding of the political winds of both countries should be considered when any courses of action are taken, thus ensuring that there are no misconceptions or misunderstandings.
The United States works hard to ensure that its border, immigration, and security policies are corrected, as does Canada work hard on these very same issues. Our nations have built our relationship on trust and mutual cooperation, and that should continue to be the case. As we work to constantly improve that sense of trust, that spirit of cooperation, and the practice of sharing information between nations, we must each work on similar relationships between our own departments, ministries, organizations, states, and provinces.
We must constantly strive to eliminate the cultural and procedural barriers that exist within our own nations and across domestic departments. We must consider ways to collect vital information that impacts our respective homeland security, yet protect methods and sources. We must learn to integrate intelligence and law enforcement information, yet protect the individual rights of our citizenry.
While the focus of today's homeland security has brought the threat closer to home, we must remember that the environment is not only intelligence-centric, but it is rule-of-law-centric as well. In the 21st century, where transnational crime and terrorism pose substantial and increasing threats and risks, it is worrisome for both our countries that the growing nexus between criminality and terrorism force multiplies the threats we face today.
We require a better understanding of today's and tomorrow's challenges in order to best address them, and we must move away from our past definition of those challenges. We must address the challenges in context as they are today and will be tomorrow, not as they were yesterday, for it is proactivity that shall determine our collective future successes or failures.
Your country, much like my own, was built on sound immigration policy, and ensuring these policies remain sound and go forward will be a determining factor in the positive growth of both our great nations.
In closing, both the United States and Canada have talented security and intelligence professionals to perform the work that lies ahead. These people exist both within and outside the government. It should be a priority of government to engage these professionals and use to the fullest capability the sound knowledge and practical solutions they offer to the security problems our nations face together.
We must ensure the right personnel are in the right positions. This human capacity, supported by sound and safeguarded intelligence, operating collaboratively between domestic agencies and international partners, will ensure that the legitimate traveller and the legitimate refugee are properly admitted to our countries, thus enjoying all the wonderful opportunities your country and mine have to offer.
:
Welcome back, Admiral, and welcome back, Mr. Platsis. It's good to see both of you again.
Admiral, from your former job as deputy director, you mentioned the intelligence gathering capabilities of what you were doing, which obviously impacts military situations and the overall security of a nation, but it also impacts migratory patterns of human beings, whether it's through immigration or just travel and movement back and forth.
You discussed at length the value of intelligence. The previous speaker talked about human intelligence in particular and how some of that is gathered. From that specific point of view, you also said that human intelligence and intelligence generally has to interact with the machinery, literally, of biometrics to be able to give you the whole intelligence picture so you know who's coming and going. Could you comment on that, sir?
:
Sure, I'd be very happy to comment.
One of the things we both have to deal with as nations is trying to describe and identify today's problems and our future problems and challenges in yesterday's terms. When I say intelligence, we all immediately conjure thoughts of 007, Cold War definitions, military intelligence. In our IRTPA of 2004, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act, and I will quote that law as that's our own, we go to great lengths to use the word “information”.
This is where the two areas start getting very grey. We have to be very cautious in the United States, as do you, I would suspect, as to what is information, what is intelligence, what is military intelligence, what is national security intelligence, what is law enforcement intelligence. These areas get grey.
We have to learn to understand how to collect that information, whether it be from what we call open sources, from clandestine sources, from international sources, or from specific activities, and piece that information together, yet absolutely respect the rights of our citizens. The last thing we want to have are non-law enforcement government agencies collecting intelligence on individual citizens. We are constantly very cautious of that. It would violate our Constitution. It violates the ideals and beliefs we have as a nation. That doesn't make the challenge any easier.
We have to make sure there is a sharing of information. There has to be a hands-off at some period. There has to be a turnover to those who are duly vested with responsibility for law enforcement, who can gather that type of intelligence, or information, whatever you choose to call it.
One of the things we have to realize is that we cannot stereotype terms and apply them across the board. We have to be very cautious of how we use those terms.
:
I listened to your former panellist's comment. I am not a biometrics expert by any means, but I do want to distance myself a bit from the use of biometrics to gather intelligence and to conduct profiling. I'm a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy. Biometrics is using the technology we have at hand to ensure you can prove who you say you are.
We've evolved throughout history. We had letters of mark, we had credentials, and then we invented photography and we were able to use your photographic image. We had to deal with cultures that thought using your photographic image captured your spirit, yet we worked through those sorts of things.
As the technology changes, I simply want to be able to ensure that when you use that government ID card and put it into your computer, and if you take your index finger and put it on the reader, I can prove that the fingerprint identification of the person using the card that has the information is confirmed and you are who you say you are, and you did not simply come by that card.
So I'm very cautious about staying away from biometrics as intelligence gathering; it's purely identification.
My concern when all different types of information are conglomerated...as I mentioned, you have differing levels of security protocol. I gave one example, that the one issue of admissibility crosses a whole level of different departments. All of these departments have differing levels of security in what they use on their internal protocols. Yes, Shared Services Canada does want to streamline. But again, it's protecting the integrity, the confidentiality and availability of that information. For example, if CIC or CBSA has information on some person and then they need to verify it with, say, CSIS or the RCMP, at some point along that line it may be possible—it may not—that the information goes from being something that's unclassified to it being a person of interest. At what point do we ensure that the information hasn't been contaminated and hasn't been altered at all?
From a biometrics standpoint, for example, yes, we can get a retina scan, and, yes, we can get a fingerprint and we can do all this, but when we actually have our electronic document, are we sure that this information has been safeguarded in a particular way?
I noticed from the previous session that you pulled out your NEXUS card. I have a NEXUS card as well. For anyone who has a NEXUS card, you'll see that you actually get this little sleeve that you're supposed to keep your NEXUS card in, because of technology that's actually embedded inside the card—it's NFC, near field communication. Lots of passports are actually starting to use this right now with e-passports....
Is that it?
:
—but I understand you have presented to this committee before, Mr. Platsis, on this specific study. I went to the evidence of March 15 when you were here and pulled out some questions I have from looking at your testimony.
You mentioned that the Auditor General made numerous recommendations with regard to the improvements of the integrity and security of our immigration system. He revealed that officers have no idea who should be coming to Canada, as they do not have enough specific data to make an assessment on admissibility. Additionally, there is a lack of performance reviews, guidance, and training.
While biometrics may assist with the information collection, these recommendations by the Auditor General are not addressed. Officers may still not be administering the current laws accordingly, with little oversight.
You stated on March 15:
The situation becomes even more daunting because of inadequate ongoing training and an overreliance on technology, which risks both increased danger and complacent behaviour.
What human resource improvements should accompany the implementation of biometrics, if there were to be future legislative changes?
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I think you mentioned in there, to use as a departure point, that biometrics should not be used as a collection point. To echo the Admiral's thoughts, it's more of a verification process. We need to know more about people before they actually show up at our borders.
There's been a little chat right now about HUMINT, and HUMINT is not necessarily, again to quote the Admiral, the James Bond type of situation. Human intelligence can range from something as simple as community engagement. For example, Canada has the most multicultural community in the world. We have everybody from every side here. We need to get some more community engagement, because if you actually think of it, global security is a function of local security, so how can we help verify this information about people coming in, engage these communities that we have?
For example, in the greater Toronto area I'm sure you could find pretty much anybody from anywhere you want. This is human intelligence that is being built up to create information, not necessarily only about a person, but, for example, a particular region, because these people call back home, they have relatives there, they have family there. It's all these little pieces of data that start coming together, so that we have a better understanding, if not necessarily of a particular person, then of the context of a particular part of the world.
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You could say this of government and many other sectors: we suffer from institutional silos. There are both institutional barriers and there are cultural barriers. There's plenty of information that I think you can find on this in numerous research studies, that certain departments have traditionally not worked well together because there's a cultural base.
To go back to almost the same idea from the previous response, it's dialogue. Within your own institutional silo, you could probably handle your issue. But once we start crossing into different departments and into different spectrums, person A from organization A might not work that well with person B. We need to actually start chipping down these silos and getting a more inter-agency response going on.
As a function of that, we are going to start sharing a whole lot more information between each other, and the more information we share with each other, we create a larger database. The larger database that we create is something that we need to safeguard, because like most databases, they become a target; they are a risk. Unless we start chipping down these institutional silos, which could be between departments...and I would even suggest internationally, with some of our traditional allies, we need to talk a little bit more. To take a quote from one of my other fields, in disaster and emergency management, the time to exchange business cards is not when the disaster happens, it's before.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I will have both of you provide some comment.
One of the big issues for many Canadians—if not the majority of Canadians—is to be able to travel. Given that you are here, Admiral, I am going to focus on the United States. Whether it's cross-border shopping, commercialization, big trucks, visits, and all sorts of reasons, we have Americans coming north and Canadians going south. Part of the concern is when you look into the crystal ball and ask, “What is it going to take in order to board the plane?” For now, we'll talk about the cars crossing the border.
What do you believe is necessary in order for us to allow for that flow in a reasonable time span? Is there something specific that government could be doing that maybe it's not doing? Is there enough interaction between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Canadian security services?
Given that this will probably be my only question, because there are only five minutes and both of you will respond to it, if you want to touch on the airports, that would also be beneficial.
Thank you.
:
That's an absolutely great question. It's a question that I think gets to the very heart of how our two nations need to address a continental, if not a regional—two thirds of the continent—problem or challenge. Yes, we have made tremendous progress over the years—certainly since 9/11—in cooperation and information sharing. ITAC and NCTC both work very closely. You are exactly right. This is that complicated interaction between terrorist information, intelligence, law enforcement information, and relationships between our largest trading partner.
How do we make that all work? I would suggest to you—I'm going to be a little bit cynical here and probably predicate it on only a marginal amount of fact. I would be surprised if we were to say our processes, while evolving, are all predicated on how we protected against rum runners coming across the border during Prohibition. I'm not sure I want to spend a lot of time on bona fide commercial traffic going across the border, so I'm with you. For the legitimate traveller and businessperson, we need to work to solve those relationships. The problem is, we have to have absolute transparency and understanding and the ability to control our borders from the exterior.
I would venture to say the typical resident of Ottawa and the typical resident of Washington, D.C., are not the threat coming across the border. What we have to do is make sure we have the right application of technology and processes that allow us to verify that truck coming from DuPont into Canada contains the materials that are on the bill of lading and that it's driven by a driver who has correct identification. Whatever we can do to make that easy, whether it be RFI technology, biometric technology, as well as sound, protected processes within our individual nations....
I personally believe we should work to the best of our ability to eliminate as many of the controls as possible across the northern border of my country and the southern border of yours, but that means we have to get a number of other things right first. I am not worried about the typical inhabitants of Ottawa. I am worried about people who come up illegally through my country, either to gain access to my country, or to potentially gain access to your country, or people coming in from the north or other points of entry into your country and then trying to come across an unprotected border to the north of mine.
We have to make sure we have the processes and correct interaction between agencies. Again, this gets back to the—intelligence always took place in another part of the world. Now it's law enforcement. I would venture to say—
Welcome both. Nice to see you back again.
I'll put in a little plug for Mr. Platsis, given that you're at my alma mater, Osgoode Hall. I wish you well there. It's rare that you get someone who's so involved in both teaching and studying at the same time. I don't know how you do it all.
I'm glad you were both here to hear the other witnesses, because I listened very closely to what they had to say. I was listening to their criticisms of biometrics, and it seemed to me that the most trenchant criticism they have is that it's not perfect. In fact, one of the last comments from Mr. Muller was that these are not infallible technologies.
Early on in your testimony, I think it was you, Mr. Platsis, who said these technologies should be a tool, not a crutch.
Can I just ask you to address the concerns that were raised in the first hour? Should we be throwing out biometrics because they're not perfect? Should we be saying that because there are false matches sometimes, therefore biometrics should not be used?
Maybe you could each spend a couple of minutes on that.
:
Do you want me to take the first crack? Okay.
No technology will be perfect. That's something the committee should understand, not only for this committee, but any study. For any technology, it's simply a function of time before it breaks down—any secure system. It could be a matter of seconds, it could be a matter of years, depending on the security infrastructure that's there.
Will mistakes happen? Yes, mistakes do happen. Of course, I'm not going to name names. I'm going to give an example of where a NEXUS cardholder, someone who has been processed by both countries, has been vetted by both countries, somehow randomly, somewhat frequently, still manages to get four S's on their boarding pass when leaving from a certain airport and not going to a particular other state. The four S's, for people who don't know, is a secondary security threat.
That's a little bit of a problem when you rely solely on the technology to be doing this.
I do not think that tossing away the benefits or the technology writ large of biometrics would be the best of ideas. It's an evolution of how we do identity, and I think the Admiral explained that quite well. We went from tombstone data to photographs to fingerprints. I think the information needs to be secured, with the understanding that it will not be perfect.
So if we're going to invest in these sorts of systems, be it information sharing between departments or biometrics, we have an inherent responsibility also to safeguard the systems, the databases, the infrastructure that they are predicated on.
Again, any sort of database—and this is a great example—becomes a target for others. So we have a responsibility, as we're collecting personal information, that while we do use it to verify and make sure that the right people are coming here, we need to protect it.
This is just my last point before I pass it over to the Admiral.
Starting a biometric file on someone or starting a file at all on someone when they just show up to our border doesn't really do much. We need to know more about the person before they actually come to us. I could just show up, for example, to the United States and give a fingerprint scan. If there's nothing to talk about—George Platsis or this fingerprint or this retina—the file starts there.
When I was growing up, my father refused to buy a colour TV until they perfected it. It's not about the technology. Who cares about the technology? Moore's law tells us that the technology is going to change in two years anyway. It's about what we're trying to do with the technology. What is the application? What are the processes that we want to employ?
Why would I ever—no offence—want to start a biometric file on anyone? I'm not sure what good that does. Again, I'm not an expert, but I do know that each of our governments has some sort of certification and documentation of who we're supposed to be, and we're just moving forward so that somehow, in today's state-of-the-art technology, it's real easy for me to put my photograph on somebody else's passport. So now I want to take advantage of the state-of-the-art technology that exists. So to sit there and say, “That is my fingerprint, my iris, my retinal scan”....
When you get into law enforcement, then we have uses for DNA samples. But now that gets very touchy, because that's intrusive. That requires giving a sample. It gets complicated. But that's law enforcement.
You need to know what you want to do with the technology. That's the critical factor, I believe.
:
I have 30 seconds? Okay.
Let me use my time, then, to thank you for coming here. It's always a pleasure to have you with us. This is a study on security that we're doing, so this information, this testimony, is very useful to us.
Our goal, of course, is to ensure the safety of Canadian citizens. Before we allow someone into the country, we want to identify who they are. Any tool we can use to help us in that identification process better protects Canadian society. Quite often people come here with no documentation. I'm sure you've had those experiences.
I had only the 30 seconds, so I will just say a big thank you once again before we move on to the next member here.
Thank you.
I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.
Border security is a compelling and important issue. However, I wanted to mention that, in Drummondville, in my riding, Drummond, many immigrants come to see me and raise other points that are also very important, such as better learning recognition and better access to the labour market. Those are elements that would facilitate integration into Canadian society. I hope that your committee will soon study those issues. They also constitute an urgent need.
As for today's topic, Mr. Platsis, you mentioned during your previous appearance before the committee that biometric information was not really useful unless it was cross-checked against a list, a database. A number of witnesses have brought up various problems with security and no-fly lists—be they internal or shared by several countries—when it comes to both the risks of mistaken identity and the difficulty in changing those lists in case of errors.
Is that a concern for you and do you have any potential solutions to recommend?
Concerning the comment about faulty information—I think I somewhat touched on this in my opening statement—we need to have some sort of mechanism, and it may be outside the bounds of this study, whereby we can verify our own information. In anything in life, it would be not prudent to take just one source and assume that it should be “the source”. You have crossing vectors and nexuses that create a sounder picture. This comes back to the question of sound information.
Again, this may be outside the purview of this particular study, but reviewing things, for example, such as how the RCMP can manage things under the Security Offences Act, because they are the lead agency for national security, or how CSIS, under sections 12 through 17, or it might be section 18...how they collect information and what they do....
It goes back to what I was talking to Ms. Freeman about. We need to break down these institutional silos. We can't rely just on one picture; we can't rely just on one statement. With our membership in the Five Eyes, we need to be able to do something from a Canadian perspective that allows us to further this information sharing. Otherwise, every other country has its own interests—I say this respectfully of my colleague, whom I admire very much—as Canada has its own interests, and unless we can take this from a Canadian vantage point, we risk being handed information that is not necessarily in our own best interests. It may be—you would like to believe that your partners and allies are looking out for you—but at the end of the day, everyone is going to be looking out for their own interests.
I will only comment on a very quick case, as an example that is in open source, even though it wasn't detailed—it came out of the U.K.—in which the U.S. was afraid to share information about a Mumbai-style attack happening inside the U.K. for fear that their own U.S.-interest sources might be compromised in the process.
We have our departmental institutional silos and then we have our international silos. We need to be more comfortable working together, keeping in mind that if we want the best decisions for Canada, they need to be taken from a Canadian vantage point, with a Canadian verification and a Canadian assurance.