Osprey Media Group Inc. - The Kingston Whig-Standard

Osprey Media Group Inc. - The Kingston Whig-Standard: "High-tech border pass raises alarm
Local News - Friday, July 29, 2005 @ 07:00


Kingston’s closest U.S. border crossing will employ high-tech radio frequency technology to monitor visitors from other countries who want to enter the States from Canada – a move that alarms both a Kingston privacy expert and an immigration specialist.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said this week that the crossing between Lansdowne and Alexandria Bay, N.Y., will be one of three Canada-U.S. land borders to require non-Canadians to carry wireless devices as part of a pilot project.

Travellers will be required to carry the devices as of Aug. 4.

The technology is part of US-VISIT, a billion-dollar anti-terrorism initiative launched last December that has kept about 700 criminals, including one posing as a Canadian, out of the States.

US-VISIT uses biometric information from photos and fingerprints taken from non-Canadians at border crossings to track residents from other countries who enter the U.S.

Canadian citizens are the only people in the world exempt from US-VISIT.

Travellers required to use the technology include landed immigrants living in Canada, Canadian citizens who are either engaged to a U.S. citizen or who have applied for a special business visa.

They’ll have to carry the wireless devices as a way for border guards to access the electronic information stored inside a document about the size of a large index card.

Visitors to the U.S. will get the card the first time they cross the border and will be required the carry the document on subsequent crossings to and from the States.

Border guards will be able to access the information electronically from 12 metres away to enable those carrying the devices to be processed more quickly.


Two other border crossings between Surrey, B.C., and Blaine, Wash., will also be implementing the technology as part of the pilot project.

Kimberly Weissman, spokeswoman for the US-VISIT program at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told The Whig-Standard yesterday that the new devices can’t be tracked outside the border crossing area.

“It has a range of 10 to 15 metres,” she said. "