Border-officers union slams ‘intrusive’ survey
Canada’s privacy commissioner has received a formal complaint about a controversial new survey that requires current and would-be border officers to share deeply personal and potentially incriminating information if they want to keep or get a job.
According to Anne-Marie Hayden, a spokeswoman for Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart, the office is now “looking at investigating” the matter. They didn’t reveal who had filed the complaint.
She said government departments and agencies are required to produce privacy impact statements whenever they introduce significant changes to a program.
While her office recently received such a statement regarding this questionnaire, Hayden said it’s still under review and the privacy commissioner has yet to provide any feedback.
That said, the feedback is non-binding and departments and agencies can “use it or not,” she said.
Meanwhile, union officials are urging their members not to fill out the so-called “integrity questionnaire” and are seeking legal advice as to whether Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has crossed a line with it.
Posted online in June, the question- naire, aimed at gauging one’s suitability for employment, was quietly taken down after the union raised concerns. But it surfaced again in recent days.
The questions touch on everything from substance abuse and sexual deviance to drinking and gambling habits and crimes individuals may have committed but were never charged for.
Jason McMichael, first national vice-president of the Customs and Immigration Union, said the latest incarnation of the survey is “even more intrusive” than earlier versions the union was briefed on and that legal action is being considered.
“For them to ask members if they’ve ever taken antidepressants or are on prescription medication, that opens the door to discrimination based on, perhaps, mental illness, based on a number of things and it’s unacceptable,” he said.
“As of right now, we’re telling people we don’t think they should fill it out. Our lawyers believe that it’s outside of privacy legislation. Certainly in our mind it compromises basic civil liberties.”
While the RCMP requires new recruits to fill out a similar survey, McMichael suggested there are elements in the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) survey that are more “intrusive.” Furthermore, the CBSA survey applies to current members, not simply new recruits, he said.
“The fact is that everyone working at the CBSA has signed on to a code of conduct,” he said. “Where does this stop?”
McMichael said it’s difficult not to be partisan about it, calling it another “example of the Conservative government delving further and further into our personal lives every day.”
NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison said he has concerns about some of the questions.