All ears at the border

When you’re asked questions at the border, starting this summer, it won’t simply be a one-on-one conservation with the person in the booth. People in Ottawa and Washington will also be all ears because the two governments have agreed to start sharing the personal information you’ve disclosed as you pass through customs.

And in Canada, that information could also be passed along to other federal government departments, the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the provinces.

For the record, Ottawa has said the Entry/Exit initiative is necessary to allow the government “to better manage access to Canada to enhance security capabilities.”

But it seems that the program goes far beyond weeding out terrorists — even though at first glance it might seem fairly harmless to ask people questions that could include their birthday, nationality, where you work or where you are going shopping.

As the Toronto Star reported, CBSA spokesperson Esme Bailey would not say if this new program would be used as an enforcement tool for purposes other than border security. That’s troubling.

For example, would the government build up a profile on cross-border shoppers and routinely target them when they cross back into Canada? If someone is travelling to the U.S. for medical treatment is that information going to be shared with other government agencies?

Or, if a government agency on this side of the border was investigating someone, would they provide specific questions for border personnel with the hopes of building a case?

Immigration policy analyst Richard Kurland told the Toronto Star the program could serve “like a blank cheque to the Big Brother. Where you go and when you go becomes government property.”

Perhaps the real question is if privacy matters to Canadians in today’s world. It should. As Ontario Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian recently pointed out, we’ve spent a great deal of time watching national security and global terrorism creep up the public policy agenda at the expense of privacy.

In its latest report, the office of the federal privacy commissioner also expressed reservations about the Exit/Entry initiative and said the use of any information be “strictly limited” and that disclosures to other agencies be “clearly justified.”

So far, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

At the very least, Canadians need to know exactly what the government intends to do with the Exit/ Entry program, in terms of how information will be used, and who it will be made available to.