Later this year, Canada is set to begin collecting passport data on every person leaving the country by air and land.
Canadian authorities will begin collecting data in order to be able to identify and track anyone — from potential terrorists to people lying about their place of residence to receive government benefits.
New measures are directed at ensuring compliance with the requirements for the place of residence for permanent residents, enhancing border security, and identifying those who fail to leave the country at the request of the authorities.
Currently, Canada Border Services Agency does not collect information on departing passengers from commercial air carriers and has access only to US data on foreign nationals and Canadian permanent residents arriving from Canada at land ports of entry.
Similar data collection programs are already in operation in Australia, New Zealand, and several European countries. The new measure will allow the Canadian authorities to track 97% of all people leaving Canada by land and air. Later, the program will be expanded to travel by rail and sea.
This summer, the authorities will begin collecting data on those traveling by land, and the process of collecting data on those traveling by air is set to be started within 12 months.
Data collection is necessary to:
- Identify high-risk travelers
- Keep tabs on foreign nationals who have expired visas and remain in Canada illegally
- Check entry and exit dates to assess applicable taxes, tax breaks and benefits for returning residents
- Check whether permanent residents (foreign nationals) returning to Canada have fulfilled the requirement of physical residence in Canada, which is mandatory for maintaining their status and qualifying for citizenship (it is required to spend 1,095 days in the past 5 years in the country before being able to apply for citizenship)