September 27, 2006
Canada-US Border ID Decisions Delayed
American legislators are proposing that a deadline for Canadians and Americans to get e-passports to pass through the US border (from Canada) be delayed by a year and a half. The current deadline is January 2008. The proposed deadline is June 2009. Both countries are already suffering marked decreases in bordertowns all across the Canada-US border, supposedly due to the hassle of security checks. Canadian politicians are calling the delay (if it passes, I guess) a victory for Canada, but that's probably the wrong way to look at it. Free Trade and tourism kind of get shackled, so both countries stand to lose.
The Canadian government is looking for an alternative to the e-passport, including the North American biometric id card, dubbed the PASS card. This card would have an RFID tag to store personal and biometric data on the smart id card. This is suggested as an alternative to passports because the Canadian passport authority would not be able to handle the sudden demand for passports if the existing deadline is maintained.
Even if the delay goes through and the biometric card is used, it only applies to physical border crossings. Canadians and Americans landing in American airports will still have to produce one of the new e-passports. All of this is part of the WHTI (Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative), signed into being by President Bush a few years ago. The US DHS has been testing RFID across the border since last year.
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