RCMP Watch

Bill Curry, Ottawa (Globe and Mail) - Canada is working with the FBI on a system called Server in the Sky that would see fingerprint and iris scan data shared around the world to nab individuals running from the law.

The personal information on the database would be used by Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand and could ultimately be used by European Union countries as well. The number of people in the system with connections to terrorism and other serious crimes would be well over one million.

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart says she first learned of the plan this week from a media report from London. No Canadian officials had informed her of the project. Ms. Stoddart is now contacting her counterparts in the four other countries to ensure privacy concerns are taken into account.

“I am concerned at the speed at which it seems to be going ahead and I’m concerned with our relatively little experience with the use of biometric technology,” she said.

Biometrics allows identification of people based on characteristics such as face, fingerprints, iris, DNA and voice. While many countries already share such data on a case-by-case basis, they don’t have a common database. The FBI has said the initial stages of the plan could be in place by next year.

Ms. Stoddart said the public inquiry into the case of Maher Arar highlighted the inadequacy of existing laws for protecting Canadians. The United States deported Mr. Arar from New York to Syria - where he was subjected to torture - after the RCMP gave the FBI information about him.

In a statement released by Sergeant Nathalie Deschênes, the RCMP confirms the talks but insists Canada has not committed to taking part.

“The RCMP is currently working with the FBI, through the International Information Consortium, on a concept that the FBI has proposed to share information on terrorist files called ‘Server in the Sky,’ ” Sgt. Deschênes said.

“At this point it is only a concept and no commitment has been made by the RCMP to implement such a system until we are satisfied that the planned concept of operations would not violate current international sharing agreements or privacy laws in Canada.”

Sgt. Deschênes said the FBI intends to present its work on this concept in May, when the consortium meets in San Francisco. The little-known international group meets annually behind closed doors and does not hold news conferences.

Tom Bush, assistant director of the FBI’s criminal justice information services division, said in an interview yesterday that most of the biometric data in the system would be fingerprints, since that is the most common method currently in use by police to identify people.

Contrary to the RCMP statement, Mr. Bush said the data would not be limited to terrorists. He said American officials, for example, would upload the files of all 600,000 individuals now wanted in the United States.

Mr. Bush said technological features will be built into the system in order to respect privacy and security laws. Countries are already sharing paper-based criminal files, he said. An electronic system would ensure the data are always up to date.

“We make thousands of changes, additions and deletions to our system daily,” he said.