Friday, September 02, 2005

Clearing Customs in the Blink of an Eye

Canada Border Services Agency is developing ways to speed up customs and immigration clearance for the frequent traveller. For individual travellers, there is now: CANPASS Air. From the website:

Travellers flying into Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Halifax, Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver international airports are now able to clear customs and immigration in the blink of an eye!

CANPASS Air facilitates efficient and secure entry in Canada for pre-approved, low-risk travellers. This program allows members to meet their border clearance obligations by simply looking into a camera that recognizes the iris of the eye as proof of identity. These travellers are identified quickly and securely. Security and the improved free flow of travellers are the cornerstones of the CANPASS Air program.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

see bruce schneier's article and reader commentary for an outline of why this is merely 'security theatre'.

Connie Crosby said...

Well, he is skeptical of "trusted traveller" programs generally, but it sounds like iris scans are the best identification....see the June 13th comments started at 9:01 pm at that site. The trick is, how do you prevent future problem passengers from signing up? Very interesting.

Connie Crosby said...

I saw this program in action on my way back from the AALL conference in St. Louis...I believe it was one of the flight crew who bent over and looked into the machine as identification. Avoided a line up at customs.