- OTTAWA (CP) -- Canada plans
to begin issuing high-tech passports with digitized photographs next year,
saying reliable travel documents are crucial to the country's status as
a "First World nation."
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- The e-Passport, as the revamped book is dubbed - given
its electronic features - will be distributed on a trial basis to Canadian
diplomats sometime in the first half of 2005, said Dan Kingsbury, a spokesman
for the federal Passport Office.
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- "If the initial implementation goes well, we'll
begin issuing the e-Passport to the general public afterwards," Kingsbury
said in an interview.
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- "It's all about maintaining the integrity and the
security of the passport."
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- The project is the latest federal initiative to track
and control the flow of people across borders more closely following the
Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.
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- The government is pushing ahead with the plan despite
objections from privacy and information specialists who argue it is unduly
intrusive and unlikely to enhance national security.
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- With the inclusion of a digitized photo, the passport
moves into the controversial realm of biometrics, the use of measurable
personal features such as an image, iris scan or fingerprints as identification
markers.
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- The e-Passport will feature a computer chip containing
the holder's photograph and personal information on the current passport,
including name and date of birth, say briefing notes obtained by The Canadian
Press under the federal Access to Information law.
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- Authorities at border points would be able to call up
the data on the digital chip by swiping the passport against an electronic
reader.
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- "The aim of the e-Passport is to reduce the chance
of passport tampering and identity fraud," Kingsbury said.
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- "What the person checking the passport will be able
to do is ensure that everything is the same on the chip as it is in the
passport itself."
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- In May 2003, the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation
Organization settled on facial recognition as the minimum biometric security
standard for passports.
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- Initially some worried the United States would require
Canadian visitors to carry passports conforming to ICAO standards.
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- Though Canada is exempt from the U.S. regime, the federal
government decided on a "proactive response" to the American
move to step up border controls, say the newly released background notes
on the e-Passport project.
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- "It is reasonable to assume that other countries,
besides the U.S., will soon require the ICAO standards for all travel documents,"
say the notes,
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- They say the Canadian initiative, with funding of $10.3
million over three years, is in line with the government's intention to
produce "internationally respected" travel identification.
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- "To maintain its reputation as a First World nation,
Canada must issue a biometrically enabled passport."
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- Kingsbury said there is no plan to compile a searchable
electronic database of the images and other data encoded on e-Passport
chips.
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- The project still raises concerns because storage of
personal information on computer chips potentially opens the door to "much
wider circulation" of the data, said Andrew Clement, a professor of
information studies at the University of Toronto.
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- "It hasn't been analysed and discussed openly in
terms of what the implications are."
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- There is a misguided faith among many that technology
will solve security problems in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks,
said Valerie Steeves, a law professor at Carleton University in Ottawa.
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- "There's been a real move in governments to create
a whole infrastructure of technological surveillance," she said.
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- "We've created a network that has real implications
for our democratic way of life and nobody's sat back and said, 'Hey, has
this helped us catch any terrorists?' "
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- Officials have not decided whether the current fee of
$85 to obtain or renew a passport will change, Kingsbury said.
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- As part of the security overhaul, the government will
also eliminate the practice of printing some passports overseas, and it
will redesign the emergency passport issued to travellers whose documents
are lost or stolen, Kingsbury added.
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- Beginning as early as January, stranded travellers will
be given a temporary passport with a white cover - to distinguish it from
the regular dark blue - valid for one year.
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- Officials are looking at requiring recipients of temporary
passports to apply for a regular passport, valid for five years, at the
same time, Kingsbury said.
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