"Calling asylum seekers a 'vulnerable group,' Canada's privacy commissioner expressed concern Friday about a new government plan to share fingerprint information with Britain and Australia to combat immigration fraud.
The three-country agreement was announced Friday with little fanfare, with Canada and the two countries providing assurances that no one's privacy would be violated and that no database for the prints would be created.
A lawyers' group in Australia also raised privacy concerns about the plan, which the United States and New Zealand were expected to join later on.
The offices of Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan made the announcement Friday along with their counterparts in London and Canberra, calling it a 'landmark initiative' that would 'improve our ability to identify foreign nationals who are seeking to enter Canada and who are trying to hide their past from authorities.'
The new agreement allows countries to check each other's fingerprint databases, but doesn't give them unfettered access.
The measure was touted as a way to better detect bogus immigration and refugee claimants. To allay privacy concerns, the countries said that no central database of fingerprints would be created and all inquiries would be done anonymously.
If a set of fingerprints did not produce a match, they would be destroyed.
This information sharing is part of a broader government initiative to introduce biometrics into Canada's immigration and refugee screening system." ...more
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