Jordana Huber, Canwest News Service - November 18, 2008

Ontario is moving ahead with plans to offer enhanced driver's licences that can be used as an alternative to a passport at the U.S. border despite objections by critics who say the plan raises privacy and security concerns

The New Democrats voted against the legislation which easily passed Tuesday, opening the door to the new licences and photo ID cards that will include citizenship information. "There are serious privacy concerns here," said NDP transportation critic Gilles Bisson. "The government has not taken heed to the advice of the privacy commissioner and others to fix this legislation in order to tighten security." Ontario is the second province behind British Columbia to offer the licences as an alternative to passports. Several other provinces also are considering the high-tech licences to meet new U.S. regulations requiring anyone travelling to the U.S. after next June to have a passport or acceptable alternative. Americans are "less inclined" than Canadians to get a passport, making it all the more important that bordering states adopt similar passport alternatives to allow for ease of travel, Transportation Minister Jim Bradley said, noting New York has introduced an enhanced licence. Ontario's enhanced licences will be offered on a voluntarily basis, he said. Bradley said the province has listened to concerns raised by the privacy commissioner and others but said the cards will use identifying numbers rather than personal profiles and the information only will be accessible by authorities at border crossings. "It's only for people at the border," Bradley said. "It's not names, it's simply a number that is there."

The enhanced driver's licences will be outfitted with a radio frequency identification device (RFID) that will emit information to a reader. Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa said the problem with Ontario's RFID is it doesn't include an on-and-off switch that could stop information from being transmitted when it isn't required. "When you are emitting out information it's not necessarily only the intended recipient that can get access to it," he said. "They could have dealt with the surveillance by ensuring it wasn't emitting this information on a 24/7 basis." Geist said the province's proposal to create a sleeve for the cards to stop them from transmitting is not the answer. "We all know that putting that onus on individual Canadians is a significant one and one that few are going to follow," he said. "People will stick their licence in their wallet and not think anything further." Ken Anderson, the province's assistant privacy commissioner, said his office is not opposed to the enhanced licences but the technology used on the cards needs to be more "privacy protective." "We think that specific piece could be done better," he said. "We think you shouldn't have to remember the sleeve." Ann Cavoukian, Ontario's privacy commissioner, has raised concerns about duplicating citizenship information to create a new database and has called for the federal government to share its citizenship information rather than creating a new database that could increase the risk of privacy breaches. (Original link)