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Results: 1 - 15 of 593
View Laurin Liu Profile
NDP (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for you, Ms. Dubé. Your presentation was very interesting. I would simply like to know whether you think open data plays an important role in disruptive technology and whether the federal government should play a role by developing a national strategy or taking a concerted approach in terms of the availability of open data.
Jacqueline Dubé
View Jacqueline Dubé Profile
Jacqueline Dubé
2015-06-04 11:46
You are absolutely right. Open data is essential. The important part is to find out which data must be released and how they can be used. We must measure how they are used, what return on investment that can produce and how that can change our society.
For example, I can tell you that we are doing a study for the Quebec Treasury Board measuring the impact of open data and figuring out whether only society will use them, or whether the data will be open between departments. We have also done it for cities in Quebec, again at the Treasury Board's request. Open data will change the way we do things because they contain information that, if we use it intelligently, can lead to very disruptive technologies and software that are also very productive for society.
Patrick Horgan
View Patrick Horgan Profile
Patrick Horgan
2015-06-04 12:06
We have to have more willingness. The open data question was one.... There are ways of protecting data, and you start with that. Once you do that, open it up.
Stop thinking that you have to protect everything. It's almost like the same thing on free trade. You could put blocks on borders, but I think we're all past that, and we're thinking that the best way to be a global player is to have open access and open free trade. It is the same at the data layer. We have to put protection on it. We have to learn how to do it properly. Once we do that though, we have to open it up. We have to get to step one, and then quickly to step two, to say how do we now build the ecosystems and those key ingredients so that people can really lift up.
There are a number of ways like that, but there's a central theme that can be built upon from the central government, of course.
Claude Gagné
View Claude Gagné Profile
Claude Gagné
2015-06-04 12:10
First of all, I had access to the Internet through the e-NABLE network.
The first thing is the design. It's open source design, so it's available through Creative Commons. It has been developed in universities by teams of researchers. For me that was the first thing. Then, for buying the filament there are various suppliers, but again the e-NABLE network provided specifications on what kinds of materials could be used.
I also had access to local support. People who know about 3-D printing here in Ottawa helped me. In fact, this is not the work of an individual. It's the work of several individuals. I had a lot of help to produce parts of suitable quality and also for the assembly.
The University of Ottawa is building an ecosystem. What is fantastic is that it's open to the community. This is quite new. In the past, universities catered to students or to their own communities, but now there's an open university. That's good. We'd like to see more of it.
Chris Gregory
View Chris Gregory Profile
Chris Gregory
2015-05-28 8:48
Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members of Parliament.
My name is Chris Gregory, and I am Director of Identity Management and Information Sharing at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, or CIC.
I'm here today to answer any technical questions that you may have on the amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act related to biometric screening under part 3, division 15, of Bill C-59.
Verifying a person's identity is vital to decisions made by Canadian visa officers abroad and by border service officers at Canadian ports of entry. An increase in application volumes and sophistication in identity fraud pose 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 Citizenship and Immigration Canada 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 systems to ensure that client information is collected, transmitted, used, and stored securely.
Biometric immigration screening is now the standard worldwide, with more than 70 countries applying such methods. 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.
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 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.
In the 2014 economic action plan, 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.
To this end, the 2015 economic action plan 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 temporarily to visit, work, or study as well as 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 would also be exempt from providing their biometrics when they apply to study or work in Canada.
The fingerprints we collect would 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, 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 is issued a visa or permit is the same individual now seeking to enter Canada.
These legislative amendments would be supported by regulatory amendments that would come into effect in 2018-19. Safeguards would continue to be in place, including in the regulations, to ensure 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 would help facilitate the entry of genuine travellers, and strengthen the safety and security of Canadians by reducing identity fraud and preventing inadmissible people, including known criminals, from entering the country.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Now I turn to Brenna for further remarks.
Brenna MacNeil
View Brenna MacNeil Profile
Brenna MacNeil
2015-05-28 8:53
Thank you for the invitation to speak today specifically about part 3, division 15 of the bill, related to legislative amendments that CIC is proposing to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or IRPA, concerning automated processing and decision making.
Mr. Chair, these provisions will allow the ministers of CIC and Public Safety to administer and enforce the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by using electronic means, including to enable automated decisions.
Economic action plan 2013 announced investments to improve processing, allowing CIC 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 residents under certain economic immigration programs. Also later in 2015, CIC will begin implementing the electronic travel authorization initiative, or eTA. 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 certain processing activities related to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, such as handling straightforward decisions.
Through technology, routine and straightforward tasks could 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, the amendments would enable automated positive and negative decisions on applications and give CIC authority to mandate electronic submissions of applications with some exceptions, such as for persons with disabilities, which would be central to CIC's electronic global processing network. The amendments would provide regulation-making authority to govern the details of the technologies to be used and other key supports. Subject to regulations, the amendments would allow foreign nationals to make applications from within Canada, as long as they have maintained appropriate status in the country.
Given the general application of the above provisions, other sections of IRPA that already relate to electronic service delivery, such as Express Entry and eTA, 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.
To maximize efficiency across CIC's processing network, these legislative amendments would apply across the act, both to 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 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. Overall, clients will receive improved service through faster processing times 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 the way it does business without altering the nature of that business.
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.
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 services, and improve the department's ability to focus its resources on those cases that need it most.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My colleagues and I look forward to any questions you may have.
View Costas Menegakis Profile
CPC (ON)
I understand that biometrics is rapidly becoming the norm worldwide. In fact, I believe there are over 70 countries using this method to screen travellers already. What are the standard practices right now? How do we collect the data of people applying to come to Canada?
Chris Gregory
View Chris Gregory Profile
Chris Gregory
2015-05-28 9:00
Under the temporary resident biometrics project, those persons who are required to provide us a biometric go to a visa application centre somewhere in the world. There are over 180 such facilities for them to go to in, I think, 94 countries.
When submitting their application, they will also submit fingerprints and have a digital photograph taken. The photograph and the prints will accompany that application into our system. The prints will be verified against immigration prints that are being stored by our colleagues at the RCMP. They will also be compared against criminal prints that the RCMP has collected for many years now. Whether there's a match or not, that information will get back to the visa officer who will be assigned to that case, most often within minutes, certainly within the hour. Any information coming from that process will help inform an immigration decision.
The information can be that sometimes there's a match against a previous application using the same identity. We have confirmation that it's the same person making another application to come and visit. That gives the officer some confidence in the identity of the person. In other cases we might find out that this is someone who has previously committed a crime in the country and been deported and is now trying to return to the country. That's essentially the process in terms of how we use these prints.
The other part of it, I guess, would be on arrival. We can then verify that the person getting off the airplane is the same person who made the application.
View Irene Mathyssen Profile
NDP (ON)
In this study you've done, have there been any indications of false positives or false negatives?
My last question is, again referring to the DFATD document, about function creep. One of the concerns that DFATD raised was that in future this information could be used for something beyond its original purpose. Is that something you've also looked at?
Chris Gregory
View Chris Gregory Profile
Chris Gregory
2015-05-28 9:12
Using this information beyond its original purposes is certainly not something I've thought of, or that my minister has instructed me to think of. It's not the issue of today. We're here today to talk to you about legislation being put forward to do exactly what the legislation is being put forward to do. We have no intention, at this time, of doing anything more with that information.
Richard Kurland
View Richard Kurland Profile
Richard Kurland
2015-05-28 9:50
It's an honour and a privilege to be here today.
There are two provisions of the proposed law that will have dramatic positive impact upon the Canadian immigration system for the applicants. The second area that I'll discuss is rather technically dry, and for the sake of time I'll read in proposed wording amendments to perhaps tighten the intent. The third aspect may be slightly controversial. The committee should be aware of the breadth of power offered to the RCMP by the current wording of the provision.
In terms of applications from within Canada, finally foreign nationals with temporary resident status may apply for a visa during their stay in Canada. This is a paradigm shift. Until now, foreign nationals were locked into Canada and could not apply while physically present on Canadian soil to adjust temporary immigration status, and that caused genuine hardship for individuals as they would have to leave Canada.
It was also a well-known visa office dodge. They would say, we may grant you a work permit, we may grant you a student permit, but show up in our office—often in the United States. The person would find the door locked behind them as they left Canada. Those days are now gone with this proposed law.
Second, it may seem technical, but I can assure you from the viewpoint of immigration practitioners that the dramatic change to allow for electronic documentation and electronic signatures brings, perhaps screaming and kicking, the immigration department into today's information technology world. The struggle of being required to provide original signatures on immigration documents is legendary in the immigration practitioner community. Again, that ship has sailed into the mists of history.
Allowing electronic signatures and electronic production of documents will dramatically improve efficiency in the administration of Canada's immigration program. It reduces the costs for applicants seeking temporary or permanent status. It enhances the efficiency of information retention and use within the immigration department. It's a money saver.
Now here are the dry and somewhat technical aspects.
The wording of proposed subsection 186.1(1) is:
The Minister may administer this Act using electronic means, including as it relates to its enforcement.
No. It's too narrow. Instead it perhaps ought to read, “The Minister may administer this Act using information technology, including as it relates to its enforcement.”
Swap out “electronic means” and put in “information technology”; that will be in keeping with proposed subsection 186.3(1).
The next one is shorter. Where subclause 169(1) says, “Subsection 11(1.01) of the Act is replaced by the following”, under the rubric “electronic travel authorization”, in proposed subsection 11(1.01), replace the words “Despite subsection (1)” with “Notwithstanding subsection (1)”. “Notwithstanding” is not an evil word, even if it has charter connotations. The word “despite” simply needs review.
Finally, after “Paragraph 32(d.5) of the Act is replaced by the following”, in clause 172, I will simply read in the proposed modification, “(d.5) the requirement for an employer to provide to a prescribed person the prescribed information in relation to a foreign national’s authorization to work in Canada for the employer”.
That's the housework. Here's the important segment.
Clause 174 reads, “Paragraph 150.1(1)(d) of the Act is replaced by the following”. This is serious stuff. It says:
(d) the retention, use, disclosure and disposal by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of biometric information and any related personal information that is collected under this Act and provided to it for the enforcement of any law of Canada or a province;
I need to point out the strategic importance and impact of these words.
First, today we're looking at a snapshot in time. Today we're discussing the collection of biometric information from individuals seeking temporary status in Canada from a relatively small number of countries. A witness suggested that this category may absorb 20% of the volume of visas today. That's not an insignificant number, considering that we're issuing more than a million.
Where is Canada headed with the border vision package? Five years down the road, seven years down the road, passports will begin to be a thing of the past. We are opening our strategic doors to biometric information collection in order to access Canadian soil, and not just from foreign nationals, not just from permanent residents. Without a Canadian passport in hard copy, biometric information collection is Canada's strategic vision—correctly. We use it now as part of the entry system to the United States—airport scan, retinal scan.
What this provision does, perhaps with unintended consequences, is hand over the keys to Canada's immigration database system to the RCMP. What can they do? They can not just use and retain, but disclose and destroy. I'm concerned about the disclosure aspect.
I have recommendations. I realize the clock is on and I realize our time is short. The disclosure aspect is pertinent, because the RCMP has a matrix of information-sharing agreements with foreign and domestic intelligence agencies as well as with regular law enforcement of other countries. I will just read into the record, in the event that we may have another agenda here, version B—
Richard Kurland
View Richard Kurland Profile
Richard Kurland
2015-05-28 9:59
Thank you, sir.
I'm not clear, based on the English and French versions of the proposed change, whether the intent is to hand over to the RCMP the biometric information as well as the related personal information taken at the time of collection or whether there is a division. Is it biometric information and any related information that's in the system, past, present, and future? I don't know. The way it's stated, biometrics can be collected and then at some point in time related personal information is on the table.
The committee members I'm sure well know that family composition forms are part of the immigration process. Their equivalent for temporary status is also part of the visa process. That means that your family tree and all the personal information in immigration databases can go out the door to the RCMP and travel to points abroad.
Richard Kurland
View Richard Kurland Profile
Richard Kurland
2015-05-28 10:01
Yes, I do.
The conclusion is this. I'd just like to read in a proposed revision, “(d) the retention, use, disclosure and disposal by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police of biometric information, any related personal information that is collected under this Act at the same time, and provided to the RCMP for the enforcement of any law of Canada or a province”.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
View Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe Profile
NDP (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Kurland, for joining us today.
First of all, thank you for your proposed amendment, but as you probably know, we cannot accept any amendments here in this committee about Bill C-59. We cannot make any substantive changes because the Conservatives refuse to split their omnibus legislation. All we can do is refer our comments to the finance committee. They will then study the amendment, if we suggest an amendment, even though they will never hear your testimony and the explanation behind that amendment. Of course, it is not the way to do things according to the opposition, but what can we do?
But, anyhow, thank you very much for being here and sharing those comments with us.
That said, I'd like to talk briefly about privacy protection.
You spoke about that. And you aren't the only one to voice concerns over privacy. The Privacy Commissioner had questions as well. And, according to him, those questions haven't been answered. It's important to discuss those issues clearly and publicly so people know what to expect. Logically, we should know exactly how people's personal information is going to be handled before approving a measure like this. What will happen to it? When and how will it be destroyed?
I'd like to quote Leslie Stalker, a lawyer and expert on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Ms. Stalker had this to say:
The big issue is privacy...we don't know how widely the data collected by the government will be shared....
She also said this:
For example, it appears that under bilateral agreements, biometric data may be shared with other countries.
Many other experts have raised questions and concerns, including the Canadian Bar Association, Amnesty International and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. I mention them just so you know you aren't alone. Other experts around the country share your concerns. I would think that a responsible government would pay attention to those concerns and provide answers before going ahead with such a measure. But the government actually expects us to give it carte blanche despite the potential for the misuse of data.
Even though you can't propose your amendment to the committee, given that the Conservatives have chosen to proceed in a way that makes doing so impossible, I would still like you to read it for us. Since you were a bit rushed earlier, I'd like to give you the opportunity to round out the end of your presentation, which you only had time to summarize.
Richard Kurland
View Richard Kurland Profile
Richard Kurland
2015-05-28 10:12
I still have confidence in the committee. In the past, I've noticed that, somehow, proposed amendments—
would appear in the final version.
So, in my view,
the glass is half full.
Nevertheless, I would say this.
I carefully considered the concerns expressed by many regarding privacy and I did come up with a practical solution. What is absent, oddly, in this detailed electronic means proposed legislation is the statutory requirement to retain a backup. How is that not in our law here and how does this connect to privacy?
You see, in the proposed law, one is entitled to dispose of information. Information may change over time, but if a privacy commissioner seeks what really happened at a certain point in time, the existence under a statutory obligation to retain a backup of the system would give the privacy advocates at least a reason to hope that redress may occur, maybe not in the near future but over the time required through a process to open a backup and retain records. To protect the public, a backup does make sense. To protect privacy concerns, the possibility of a person, years later, going into the system to retrieve data may have a deterrent effect on public officials to encourage them to respect privacy concerns.
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