Hi there everyone I've not posted in sometime but thought I would when I saw this. Not sure if people are aware but I came across this information on the BSI (British Standards Institute) internet site. I was looking at their new Biometrics website as I work within IT and saw an article advertised with the title of this post. It read as follows;

'The Canadian government has announced plans to create a new visa system
that would require visitors to the country to provide biometric
information.

Yet to be passed by government, the proposals would affect those with
temporary Canadian visa, including workers, students and visitors, the
Toronto Sun reported.

The scheme could go live within the next three or four years, but has been
criticised by opponents as potentially placing information, such as
fingerprints, iris scans and facial recognition photos, at risk of being
lost or misused.

Claudette Deschenes, assistant deputy minister in the Immigration
Department explained to the Canadian parliament that biometric information
from those who do not require a visitor's visa to enter Canada will be
taken at "the port of entry".

She added that the Immigration Department is working on the biometric visa
plans alongside the Canada Border Services Agency'.

I just thought I'd let people know.

Cheers, 4_Toon_8

Bear in mind that British citizens with work or study permits, do not require temporary resident visas for Canada.

Unless they intend to make work permits biometric too.

That's true JAJ but if successfully introduced in this area then there is a good possibility that it would be introduced across the board, don't you think? As with the UK ID cards, their first phase is as a resident permit for foriegn nationals and then this is slowly to be introduced to others. I just wondered whether this type of approach was being applied here. Granted for UK nationals atthe moment this will have little impact but if you look further down the line it might be a sign of what is to come and therefore I thought others could do with a heads up on this.

Chees, 4_Toon_8

I thought all the 1st world countries were going biometric.

Even the current UK passport photos are designed so that they can use face recognition software, and are equipped with an RFI chip, so that you can be detected remotely.

Forget that! When are they going to introduce those walk through x-ray scanners like in "Total Recal"

Whats an RFI chip? is that something like the chips they are putting in to Babies in the US (research at the moment) so they can be traced? If it is in the passport it only means they can find the passport, not you.

They are already in operation:-

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/fligh...bodyscan_N.htm

Sometimes I do wonder if david iche was right and the world is run by lizards.

That is too cool!

If you have the latest issue British passport you can see the RFI chip in the back cover. They aren't putting them in people yet It contains the photo you submitted with the application. Later on it will contain finger prints or iris patterns. It can be read remotely. You are correct it means that they can track the passport not you, but how do you propose to cross an international frontier without your passport?

Many, perhaps most, people who have a Canadian passport also have another one. I'd think trying to track someone by the location of one of their passports would produce the wrong result as often as the right one, even if the person wasn't trying to avoid being tracked. I don't, for example, routinely take my British passport with me to the US.

VeriChip's chairman, has proposed mandatory chipping of guest workers and immigrants. A hospital in Ontario plans to implant the chips in babies, and the U.S. Army is mulling a requirement for enlisted personnel.

A quote from this article http://www.businessweek.com/technolo...211_165324.htm

There was a thing I saw on the telly about tracking chips being put into babies in the US and you can apparently get your teenager chipped before they go travelling so you can track them!!!!

There was a big fuss about being able to chip babies in the UK after some celebrity kidnapping, maybe five years ago. I didn't get mine done. Some things you just don't want to know.