Will ‘action plan’ threaten our privacy?
It is not entirely surprising that the federal government announced its “new border initiatives” in early December in Washington. What a great early Christmas present, to itself and the people of Canada — a gift that you can keep announcing again and again for years to come! The deal, or rather framework, has been ready to go for months, and most of the initiatives are welcomed (or perhaps more accurately driven) by business needs on both sides of the border.
Let’s be clear: The government’s announcement of a “framework in principle” or an “action plan” translates into everyday English as “no real change for the next two to three years at best.” And, even then, implementation can be further delayed.
Yes, there will be some “pilot” programs, but those will be limited in scope and benefits to specific groups, and provide only incremental improvements at best.
Frankly, the business community has been growing impatient, as we all have, at the sclerotic pace of improvement and streamlining at the border. Improvement thus far, although touted as “game-changing to the public,” has proven to be incremental at best, with most of the gains coming from reductions in traffic as a result of the “thicker” border. Lobby groups, trade associations and law firms have all been pushing initiatives that address their specific needs. But who has been pushing for the average person crossing the border?
While the politicians and bureaucrats pat each other on the back, for developing an actionplan that they can continue to “develop” for years, no one is talking about the elephant(s) in the room that this new initiative creates.
Some of the outlined action will hopefully refocus current wasted resources in a smarter manner. Carrying out joint customs operations, inspection and policing makes sense and should have been brought in years ago, but then there has been the nagging question of how this is going to be funded.
No one seems to have caught the fact that this initiative is subject to “new resources” (i.e., funding) on both sides of the border. Given the current economic and political landscape, particularly in the United States, the required funding will be slow in rollout and even then, subject to current and future Congressional trimming.
No politician can stand up today and say these changes won’t be handicapped by political wrangling and interference. That’s the first of our herd of elephants ahead.
The idea of introducing new exit controls (common in communist countries and Third World dictatorships), is a quantum throwback in terms of increasing throughput at the border. Exit controls will significantly increase border delays and become an even greater deterrent for cross-border activity.
That’s a second, even larger elephant.
The government and bureaucrats in Canada are hoping some of these delays can magically be addressed by technol- ogy and the new e-passports being planned for launch next year. That’s the biggest elephant yet.
Unfortunately, the technology (so far) being planned is seriously flawed, and that will make the lines and the unintended consequences far more serious for the average person. Part of the reason is that the people deciding on this are not the people who cross the border by car regularly. These are bureaucrats who fly between Ottawa and Washington and rarely cross an international land border.
Therefore, they don’t understand the problems and costs they will impose on the average person with their actions. They also don’t get the same response from Immigration agents as their status streamlines their own processing.
New e-chip passports (with radio frequency identification chips, or RFID) have been shown to be subject to hacking and alteration. Identity thieves have proven themselves adept in developing scanners that they use today, walking through a crowd of people and effectively trolling credit card details from unknowing victims. Ah, yet another elephant.
Imagine the implications when someone can scan the much more detailed information from your passport from inside your purse or jacket without removing it and create (unknown to you) a criminal you as you walk through a mall or while on vacation. If you believe it’s a problem when someone steals your identity online, just wait until they surreptitiously access your passport details.
Your alter ego’s activity could easily result in a criminal warrant being issued for you as a result of their illegal activities. That might slow down your next entry to the United States or return to Canada a tad. Yes, that’s a very, very large elephant.
The government in Canada is suggesting it will offer a 10year passport in 2012 (which the Americans and most other countries already have). Can you imagine the impact of deploying technology that can be hacked in an e-passport for 10-years!
Even credit card issuers are adding new layered technology and issuing new more secure cards at a speed of every three to four years. Another elephant.
To the bureaucrats who say these new passports and technology can’t be hacked or altered, I say: It already has been proven and been done. People have successfully hacked the test passports issued.
The government and bureaucrats are putting at risk your most sensitive details, for which you (not the government) will be ultimately held responsible. Wow, that’s the biggest elephant of all.
Any assertion on the part of the government that they now have “better technology” or more secure systems entirely lacks credibility in light of their previous attempts to obfuscate their failings from the public. They have already lost the public trust and confidence through their actions.
How can the government not see these elephants? The truth is that they probably do but they are hoping that, if they ignore them, you won’t notice them while they buy time to figure out how to deal with the problems created.
I’ve exposed only part of the herd here. Yes, it is much, much larger.
That’s the result of years of secret negotiations; it always has been and always will be. These elephants created by bureaucrats with unintended consequences also produce a very real roomful of very large droppings for taxpayers to clean up.
Rather than conduct itself in isolation, the government and bureaucracy must open up to public input and scrutiny to resolve this in a manner that is safe and secure for Canadians. Better, more sophisticated, layered security measures and more testing are needed as well as a system or a method that can be securely updated.
Until then, suspend the insanity and conga lines that exit controls will produce. Ignoring the issue will not stop the fallout from occurring.
The only way to eliminate the herd of elephants created is to bring these matters into an open transparent environment and deal with them.
The government can no longer be trusted to deal with this in isolation, as their secretive processes threatens the core of information privacy to Canadians.
Change the focus away from low-risk individuals, and focus on preventing the problem in the first place.
If you thought the long-gun registry costs were a boondoggle, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
Most people never imagined we had so many elephants roaming openly in Canada.