Showing posts with label Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Biometrics and DNA-enabled passports
About 10 years ago, a large brown envelope arrived in my mailbox from my old alma mater. It contained a request for me to participate in a long-term research study that the university was undertaking on the effects of drinking water from Lake Ontario, which I had been drinking for most of my life. The large brown envelope also contained a much tinier brown envelope into which I was to deposit the clippings of all ten of my toenails. Once I got past the "ew…gross" factor, I began to ponder the implications of sending away little pieces of my DNA that were to go on file for a decades-long study. Despite the assurances from this well-respected university that my toenail clippings would be kept secure and not used for any other purpose, I opted not to participate, as I just did not feel comfortable with the prospect.Fast-forward a decade and it appears that our governments will eventually be forcing us to provide DNA samples, if we ever want to travel outside the country, that is. According to a CanWest News report:
Canadians will inevitably have to carry travel documents with their DNA,
biometrics or other biological identifiers in order to ensure secure border
travel to the United States, according to a new white paper to be revealed to
government officials in Ottawa Monday.
Although some technology, such as DNA-enabled passports or driver's
licences, may be a long way off, terror threats and other looming risks mean
governments must begin to seriously consider how they will introduce those
measures in the future, [said Michael Hawes, executive director of the
Foundation for Educational Exchange between Canada and the United States of
America.]
The white paper will outline the implications of the U.S.’s Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which earlier this year required Canadians flying into the U.S. to carry a passport and which will require all Canadians driving or walking across the border to have a passport by 2008.
A few toenail clippings in a university researcher’s file cabinet are a minor concern compared to a DNA profile being available in electronic format to my own government, let alone a foreign government. While the purpose is to guarantee that I am who I say I am when traveling in and out of my country, what would happen if the electronic representation of my DNA were stolen? Just ask someone who shares a similar name to someone on the U.S. "no-fly" list how easy it is to prove who they are: how much more difficult and dangerous will it be if your DNA profile is stolen or altered?
It raises the question of ownership of the data and informed consent to citizens about how it will be used. Citizens should have assurances that their DNA profile will not be collected or saved by foreign governments and that the information will not be made available to other government agencies or third parties. Genetic information from DNA and other biometric information can be dangerous not only if it is used to assume someone’s identity, but also if it reveals health or social information that could be used in a negative way against the owner.
The use of biometrics and DNA seems inevitable in an increasingly security-obsessed world. As citizens we need to pay very close attention to these initiatives and the laws in place to protect our identity.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Local Reaction to the Arivaca Tower and SBInet
Imagine the government is planning to build a 98 foot (30 metre) tower on the edge of your small town, where guards monitoring the adjacent national border will use radar and live video streaming to transmit the images and GPS locations of people crossing the border illegally to the laptops of guards waiting on the ground. At any time in this rural area, a 130 decibel "hailer-horn" could sound, disrupting the peace of your day, startling horses and their riders and scattering local birds and wildlife. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.This is the reality facing the residents of Arivaca, Arizona, the town which will serve as the pilot project for U.S. Homeland Security’s Secure Border Initiative or SBInet. The tower is scheduled to be erected this week. I wrote a few days ago about the privacy concerns this may raise for Canadian and Mexican citizens living near the U.S. borders and the proposed network of 10,000 kilometres (6,213 miles) of towers. J. Otto Pohl, a resident of Arivaca who has been writing about the tower in his blog Otto’s Random Thoughts pointed me to several local articles about the tower and the reaction of local residents. This is an enormous intrusion in their lives and they have been given very little notice and no real consultation by Homeland Security or Boeing.
What is more discouraging is the tremendous cost and apparent failure of this kind of technology in securing the borders. One year ago, The Washington Post wrote about SBI net and the checkered record of similar kinds of multi-billion dollar surveillance technologies:
If the military could seal a 6,000-mile border for $2 billion, Iraq's borders would have been sealed two years ago," said Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank.
The small town of Arivaca will serve as the proving ground for SBInet and local residents appear to have an uphill battle in ensuring their concerns are heard. Hopefully the amount of international attention given this story will not disappear once the tower goes up.
--------------
Meanwhile, under the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), Canadians are facing huge line-ups at Passport Offices, as under the new American law every Canadian is now expected to produce a passport when flying across the border and a year from now, in order to cross the border by land. Until recently, a driver’s licence was adequate, particularly for a daytrip of cross-border shopping or visiting family and friends. The United States is implementing the WHTI to increase border security. The initiative stems from the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, which is based on the 9/11 Commission Report.
Politicians in Canada and the U.S. have often boasted about sharing the longest, undefended border; those days are about to become a distant memory as a vast network of towers and surveillance equipment is erected along the border over the next few years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
