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June 2, 2008 According to the Montreal Gazette today, “While Quebec's privacy commission is being kept in the dark on a proposed enhanced driver’s licence (EDL), or Permis de conduire plus, Ontario’s Information and Privacy commissioner, who has been part of the EDL process in that province since 2006, is calling a public forum on the issue for July 16.” The article reports that “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is the driving force behind the proposed EDL, setting the criteria Canadian provinces must meet to allay U.S. security concerns,” and that after January 1, 2009, all Canadians will need an EDL or valid passport to enter the United States. So far, B.C., Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec are the only provinces developing the new cards, but the federal government wants to see the program go nationwide. Rather than debate the usefulness of EDLs, and the potential dangers they pose to our privacy rights, the federal and provincial governments have been quietly sorting out the logistics and compatibility issues with adjacent U.S. states. Canada’s privacy commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has warned that EDLs will establish a de facto national ID card in Canada without having debated whether we really want or need one. Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner’s office will be taking those concerns to the public and inviting comment from human rights and privacy groups in Canada. Michelle Chibba, policy director of the Ontario commission, told the Gazette that the B.C. pilot project is “very invasive” in terms of the questions it is asking applicants. “I have seen the B.C. questionnaire and it asks: ‘Where were your mother and father born?’ ‘Were you ever pardoned?’ ‘Did you come in during the American war?’ … There are some questions that a ministry issuing driver's licences really shouldn’t be in the business of asking.” The fact that the cards are being issued to meet U.S. security demands is no reason to implement them, says University of Toronto professor Andrew Clement in the Gazette article. He says the Canadian government should just make it easier for Canadians to get passports. “If you have a determined foe, the ID operation isn't going to present much of an obstacle," he told the Gazette. "But it has all kinds of other uses, social control, population control." For more information on the EDLs, see our previous post, North American ID card in the works through the SPP.
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