OTTAWA - Canada's border agency wants to expand its surveillance of travellers entering the country, with plans to force buses, trains and cruise ships to provide advance electronic lists of passengers and their personal details.
Since October 2002, the Canada Border Services Agency has collected advance information from airlines on arriving passengers. The mandatory reporting, enforced with $3,000 fines, now allows the agency to run computer checks on about 96 per cent of all air travellers coming to Canada.
But companies that operate buses, trains and cruise ships are currently required to provide such information only on request, and without the same mandatory electronic transfer of data demanded from airlines. Instead, the ad hoc passenger data usually arrives by fax or e-mail, and is often incomplete, making analysis difficult.
A January report from the agency, however, outlines a plan to broaden surveillance to require the same advance electronic data that airlines must provide, covering 100 per cent of passengers on all modes of travel.
"Pre-arrival targeting has not yet realized its full potential," says the document.
"With the proper leadership, design and delivery framework, electronic systems, training and regulatory support, pre-arrival targeting could become and excellent risk-management and workload-management tool."
The report says a single, central authority is being created this year to manage the collection, monitoring and analysis of passenger information to spot potential terrorists and criminals. Some of the information is shared with U.S. agencies under agreement.
As well, a series of internal studies is under way to determine how best to expand passenger surveillance - and to better monitor marine cargo and commercial goods before they enter Canada, along with tougher penalties for failing to comply. The first steps in broadening the system are expected sometime this year, the report indicates.
Under the current air-traveller system, a central computer system known as PAXIS sifts through information on the 20 million air travellers arriving in Canada each year, and checks the data against criminal records, customs infractions and immigration warrants.
The computer red-flags about 240,000 passengers before arrival each year and Ottawa-based experts known as 'targeters' review each file, issuing electronic 'lookouts' on the more suspicious travellers. Border officers then pull aside the suspects at airports for detailed questioning.
The personal information airlines must provide includes full name, birth date, gender, citizenship, visa and passport numbers, baggage information, and seat number.
The agency does screen travellers and crew arriving by other modes, although advance passenger information is provided only if requested and in non-standard formats.
The report notes that about 12 per cent of the 600,000 cruise ship passengers entering Canada in 2006 were given secondary, detailed questioning by border officers but "few travellers arriving by sea were identified as high risk."
The exceptions are the crews of commercial vessels. All such crew members are considered high risk, and the agency now requires their personal information to be sent seven days before arrival.
The agency currently spends about $63 million each year on pre-arrival targeting, including a parallel commercial-goods system.
A spokesman for the agency indicated that trains and cruise ships, rather than buses, will be the first areas for expanding the electronic transfer of passenger information .
"The CBSA is engaged in early consideration to integrate cruise ships and rail within the . .. program," Derek Mellon said in an e-mail response to questions.
"Once the analysis is complete, the CBSA will be in a position to consider the time frames for implementation."
A spokesman for Canada's privacy commissioner noted that the original legislation allowing passenger information to be collected referred to all modes of travel, and has already been approved from a protection-of-privacy standpoint.
But Colin McKay said there are concerns about private carriers, who have limited track records on safeguarding personal information, suddenly being required to manage confidential databases.
"Are these companies prepared to collect this information and keep it safe?" he said in an interview.
"Airlines have passenger-data systems and are used to collecting personal information and keeping it safe. Bus companies, I don't think, are in the habit of asking more than your name, if they ask you that. ... It raises a practical question for us."
In a 2006 report, the privacy commissioner warned that the border agency was sometimes sharing personal information with U.S. authorities orally, without written requests, violating government policy.
