Federal Budget Bill Passed Provision to Further Digitalize the Border

Cars line up at a checkpoint after crossing the Peace Bridge into the United States from Canada in Buffalo, N.Y., on Nov. 8, 2021. (Joshua Bessex/AP Photo)

The recently passed federal budget bill modifying dozens of acts contains a provision that will further the digitization of the border.

Bill C-47, which runs close to 400 pages, received royal assent on June 22 and modifies the Customs Acts to “allow a person arriving in Canada to present themselves to the Canada Border Services Agency [CBSA] by a means of telecommunication.”

CBSA says this will allow for the introduction of a series of voluntary service-processing tools at border crossings and airports—including the controversial ArriveCAN application.

“Legislative amendments to the Customs Act proposed in Bill C-47 would address current barriers to proceeding with proposals to realize a more modern traveller experience. The changes introduce a new manner of presentation that would be supported by the deployment of voluntary self-service processing tools,” CBSA media relations spokesperson Maria Ladouceur said in an email to The Epoch Times.

The modified act now has a section that gives anyone entering Canada two options to present themselves; either to an officer in person, or to the agency “by a means of telecommunication that is specified by the Minister for use at that customs office.”

Ladouceur said these “means of communication” refer to current and future border processing technologies, such as Primary Inspection Kiosks, mobile apps such as the Advance Declaration feature in the ArriveCAN app, electronic gates, telephone, and radio.

Ladouceur said the legislative changes are meant to support the federal government’s investment in a “safe, modern and efficient travel experience for Canadians and visitors crossing our borders.” As part of the Traveller Modernization initiative, the CBSA is developing new tools to facilitate travel through the Canadian border while ensuring the safety of communities, she said.

Several forms of digital ID or credentials for travel projects have been in the works in recent years, including the Known Traveller Digital Identity (KTDI) spearheaded by the World Economic Forum.

As that project was being completed, Canada embarked on another digital ID for travel project with the Netherlands.

Other digital credential systems are already in use on select flights from Air Canada, which was a KTDI partner.

ArriveCAN

The ArriveCAN app was launched in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic as a screening tool to ensure travellers arriving in Canada were complying with border measures. In July 2021, a new version of the app allowed Canadians to prove their COVID-19 vaccination status by uploading their documents via the app.

The application, which cost $54 million to develop, became contentious for many Canadians. Some mayors and businesses close to the Canada-U.S. border complained the app was discouraging Americans from doing business in Canada, while a glitch in the app resulted in 10,200 people incorrectly being told to quarantine.

The use of ArriveCAN was made optional in September 2022, but an additional feature called Advance Declaration remained, which allowed passengers to fill out a CBSA declaration form ahead of their arrival at customs to speed up processing. Figures provided by the federal government in early June show there is low uptake, with only 11 percent of eligible travellers using it.

According to Ladouceur, ArriveCAN’s Advance Declaration feature had been used more than 1 million times, approximately 300,000 times a month, and has been shown to reduce the amount of time a traveller spends at a kiosk or gate by roughly 30 percent. She added that the CBSA is also currently exploring “other optional ArriveCAN features to provide travellers with easy access to information, such as border wait times and other self-serve functions.”

Right to Privacy

Hatim Kheir, a lawyer for Charter Advocates Canada, said giving Canadians the option to use a more convenient means to cross the border is “not the issue.” He said the issue lies with a paragraph in the bill claiming that if one of the two manners of verifying identification at the border is unavailable, they must use the other option.

“This could create a situation where people are forced to use ArriveCAN, and it’s my belief that this would be unconstitutional for the same reasons that we’re arguing that ArriveCAN was unconstitutional, namely, because it’s a violation of people’s right to privacy,” Kheir said.

He also cited concerns about ArriveCAN being integrated into a digital ID system that would control Canadians’ abilities to access healthcare, finances, and government services.

“The real issue here is that it creates a massive lever of power in the hands of the government. The Canadian government and Western countries are based on this liberal idea that a good government is a limited government because power corrupts and absolute power should not be given to people,” he said.

“And the real danger in something like a centralized digital ID system is exactly that. It’s near unlimited power.”