Canadian Visa-Application Centres in China Owned by CCP-Affiliated Companies

Canadian Visa-Application Centres in China Owned by CCP-Affiliated Companies
A Chinese flag is illuminated by sunshine in the Hall of Honour on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sept. 22, 2016. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld
Andrew Chen
Updated:

A company owned by Chinese police in Beijing collects detailed personal information as part of the Canadian visa-application process, raising security concerns for travelers applying for a visa to Canada and other countries.

Beijing Shuangxiong Foreign Service Company, which operates the Canadian visa-application centre in China’s capital, is owned by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau, according to a Globe and Mail report. With a number of the centre’s staff found to be members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), questions are raised about how private information is kept from the regime that is known for surveillance and security threats.

Chinese security services “obviously have a huge interest in mining visa data,” Robert Potter, a cybersecurity consultant in Australia who has worked as an adviser to the Canadian government, told The Globe.

He said visa-application centres are of high intelligence value. Government agents have a better chance of infiltrating a foreign state if they can learn from these centres about how to get their visas approved.

The knowledge could also be used to bar Chinese citizens from leaving the country. Potters said some people, such as Uyghur Muslims, a large ethnic minority group that the CCP is bent on controlling, can “get flagged as a terrorist” just for applying for a visa to leave China.

“If you’re an Uyghur and you’re applying for a visa to Canada on humanitarian grounds, giving that information to the security service is really dangerous.”

Guy Saint-Jacques, a former Canadian ambassador to China, said it’s best to assume there is no privacy for visa applications made in China.

“You can bet the Chinese government is interested in knowing who is going to study where abroad, who is going as a tourist, and who wants to leave and immigrate,” he said.

Turnisa Matsedik-Qira, of the Vancouver Uyghur Association, demonstrates against China's treatment of Uyghurs while holding a photo of detained Canadians Michael Spavor (L) and Michael Kovrig outside a court appearance for Huawei Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou at the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver, Canada, on May 8, 2019. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images)
Turnisa Matsedik-Qira, of the Vancouver Uyghur Association, demonstrates against China's treatment of Uyghurs while holding a photo of detained Canadians Michael Spavor (L) and Michael Kovrig outside a court appearance for Huawei Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou at the British Columbia Supreme Court in Vancouver, Canada, on May 8, 2019. Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

Close Ties With the CCP

Beijing Shuangxiong describes itself as among the first agencies approved by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau to provide individuals with entry and exit services.