Biometrics Field Trial Evaluation Report

Section 3. Biometrics Field Trial

3.1 Purpose

In 2004, CIC allocated $3.5 million to design, implement and evaluate a six‑month operational field trial to explore how biometrics could be used in Canada’s visa process and to facilitate entry into Canada, enhancing program integrity and client service. The specific objectives can be summarized as:

• Measuring biometric technology as a program integrity tool.
• Understanding the impact of the introduction of biometrics on client service for Canada’s visa process and entry facilitation.
• Exploring the organisational and procedural impacts of biometric implementation.
• Understanding biometric program costs so they can be measured against benefits.

The CIC and CBSA experience during the field trial, as well as evaluation results, will be used to inform forward planning.

3.2 Scope

The field trial ran for six months at two visa offices abroad (Hong Kong and Seattle), at the Vancouver International Airport (VIA), at the Douglas and Pacific Highway ports of entry in British Columbia, and at the Refugee Intake Centre in Toronto, Ontario. During those six months, all clients who appeared at the participating offices to apply for a temporary resident visa, a study or work permit, or to claim refugee protection were required to provide biometric data.

Field trial sites were chosen in order to:

• Ensure a diversity of clients representing many nationalities. Hong Kong and Seattle are transit hubs and therefore serve a global population. Their selection ensured that the population was not homogenous.
• Measure the service effects of in‑person enrolment. Both visa offices serve most clients in person. Adding the field trial activities was expected to have little impact on operations but would allow for the collection of enough data to measure the impact on service.
• Ensure maximum entry verification. Overseas offices were matched with the most likely entry points into Canada, thereby allowing for the greatest potential for collecting biometrics for verification purposes.

3.3 Restrictions on scope

The following conditions applied during the field trial:

• Children aged 14 or under, as well as diplomats and government officials travelling on government business were not required to participate in the enrolment of fingerprints.
• Provisions were made for clients who were unable to enrol fingerprints.
• The field trial test did not perform biometric matching in real‑time. Decision makers for visa approval, entry to Canada and refugee claims were not privy to the results of biometric matching performed at CIC National Headquarters (NHQ).
• All biometric information and matching data were isolated in a testing database with highly restricted access and verified by forensic specialists to ensure that the system yielded a correct result.
• The field trial client biometrics database was destroyed in July 2007 in keeping with CIC’s privacy commitments.

It is important to note that the USA PATRIOT Act did not affect the field trial. Although the supplier was an American company, the biometric database was owned by the Government of Canada and housed in a restricted access location at CIC NHQ in Ottawa.

3.4 Description of the Biometrics Field Trial

The biometrics field trial involved the introduction of fingerprint and facial recognition technologies to the processing of temporary resident visa applicants (students, workers and visitors) and refugee claimants.

3.4.1 Type of biometrics collected

Photos

CIC temporary resident visa applicants are routinely required to submit their photos as part of the application process. In order to maximize the accuracy of facial recognition technology, photos received at the time of application were required to meet new CIC photo standards and specifications (See Appendix A – Photo Specifications) based on the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) photo standards for size, pose, lighting and other related specifications. Non‑compliant photos were rejected through a quality assurance process at the visa office and clients were required to submit new photos.

Photos were scanned, re‑sized and saved to a contactless chip placed in the client’s passport under the Canadian visa seal. More details on the use of a chip can be found in section 3.4.2.

Fingerprints

Ten inkless, flat fingerprints were collected for the purpose of enrolment at the time of the first in‑person contact with the client–at the visa office or port of entry. During enrolment, clients were asked to place four fingers from their right hand, then four fingers from their left hand, and then two thumbs together on the glass of the fingerprint reader.

After clients had enrolled 10 fingerprints at the visa office, on subsequent entries into Canada through a participating port of entry, they were asked to provide only one fingerprint (usually the index finger) for the purpose of verification. The system then compared the presented fingerprint to all (usually 10) of the fingerprints enrolled at the visa office. This was done for two reasons:

• With all 10 fingerprints in the system, we can eliminate the possibility of requesting a match for a finger that is not on file, which would produce a false rejection.
• The officer is given some control over which finger is presented for comparison.

These capabilities will be important to the success of a fully deployed system.

If the client applied for and received their visa by mail, and subsequently entered Canada through a participating port of entry, they were asked to provide all 10 fingerprints for the purpose of enrolment.

Toronto Refugee Intake Centre

Photos and fingerprints are required from refugee claimants in Canada. Data collected at the Toronto Refugee Intake Centre during the six‑month field trial was included in the database for the purposes of matching and analysis.

The volume of enrolments at the Toronto Refugee Intake Centre during the field trial were deemed to be significant enough to enhance the technical testing under the field trial and presented the possibility to test match enrolees who moved from the visa program to the refugee program. The Toronto Refuge Intake Centre processes the largest volume of refugee claims per year in Canada. The potential for identity fraud for clients crossing over between the visa and the refugee programs was identified as a security gap that biometrics could address.

3.4.2 The use of chips to identify field trial clients

Since field trial clients constituted a very small portion of travellers at the participating ports of entry, there was a need to identify them quickly at the primary inspection line (PIL) in order to collect fingerprints for verification, or for enrolment for mail‑in applications. A chip was placed in the client’s passport under the Canadian visa seal, for quick identification at the port of entry. The chip contained an image of the client photo submitted at the time of application, a field trial client number and an indication whether or not the client had enrolled fingerprints. When field trial client passports were read at the port of entry, this information was displayed on a small PC Tablet for the port of entry officers (PIL officers at VIA, and to the immigration secondary officers at VIA and the Douglas and Pacific Highway).

As a chip tampering detection method, a digital signature was created and added to the chip automatically by the system’s software. When the chip was read, the system would indicate whether the expected digital signature was present or, if not, would display an appropriate message to the officers.

3.4.3 Analysis and matching

The biometric (photo and fingerprint) information was encrypted according to Government of Canada standards and transmitted VIA a protected channel to a secure database at CIC NHQ in Ottawa, where biometric matching and analysis were conducted.

For more details on the usefulness of biometrics in detecting fraud at CIC and performance of the biometric system, see Chapters 5 and 6 respectively.

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