tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5391794662599427552.post3799387017601679837..comments2023-10-30T07:18:05.869-07:00Comments on deepREDtory: Passports, Provincial Politics & SecurityUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5391794662599427552.post-60916970055472319552007-03-01T11:06:00.000-08:002007-03-01T11:06:00.000-08:00Globe Editorial, Feb. 28Not the driver's licenceIt...Globe Editorial, Feb. 28<BR/><BR/>Not the driver's licence<BR/><BR/>It is easy to understand why so many U.S. governors are reluctant to endorse four provincial premiers' daft schemes to substitute driver's licences for passports at the border. Sure, those proposed licences would carry a biometric chip to identify the bearer through iris or facial recognition. And the impending U.S. requirement for passports or an equivalent document at the Canada-U.S. land and sea borders by June of 2009 could create huge hassles. But the complications of this risky scheme so outweigh any possible benefits that it is hard to imagine why three premiers -- from Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba -- went to Washington this week to lobby the governors. (Quebec Premier Jean Charest could not attend because of the provincial election.)<BR/><BR/>Security expert Wesley Wark of the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies put it well. "The premiers are desperate, encouraged in this fantasy by the business community and governors in the U.S. border states. It won't meet U.S. security needs. And it conjures up a foolhardy sinkhole of spending and potentially grave privacy abuses."<BR/><BR/>What can the premiers be thinking? Suppose the Americans fell for this scheme. Suddenly driver's-licence bureaus would have to do a lot more than check parallel parking skills. They would have to confirm that applicants were who they said they were. There would bebackground checks, demands for birth certificates and sponsorship requirements. Sounds a little like the existing passport office, doesn't it? The provinces would have to build bureaucracies. Huge bureaucracies. Meanwhile, what would happen at the border to folks who don't drive? <BR/><BR/>And what about security at these new driver's-licence offices? Ontario has had trouble protecting even existing data. In a devastating report on the Transportation Ministry in 2005, the provincial Auditor-General noted that there had been incidents of misuse of credit-card information as well as the creation of fraudulent driver's licences by altering existing licences. Over four years, the report said, the ministry had misplaced 49,000 high-risk stock items while another 7,000 items were reported stolen. That hardly inspires confidence.<BR/><BR/>There is already an alternative to the passport, the Nexus card, which is available to Canadian and U.S. residents and which expedites crossings at the land border for low-risk, pre-approved travellers. The Americans will continue to accept Nexus cards at the land borders when the passport requirement takes effect. It's hard to understand why the premiers are calling for another complicated level of bureaucracy, especially since licences differ from province to province. <BR/><BR/>As the premiers return home today, they should abandon this foolish idea. They should urge Ottawa and Washington to expand the Nexus program. It is, after all, a federal problem, and it's Ottawa's responsibility to solve it.DeepRedToryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11937805031804189941noreply@blogger.com