Border securityU.S., Canada issue a joint statement of privacy principles

The United States and Canada are neighbors, but they have different political cultures. In Canada, they regard some of the measures the United States took after 9/11 as excessive and unnecessary. In the United States, some regard Canada’s immigration policy, for example, a bit too relaxed.

Because of the differences in outlook, the United States has introduced increasingly tougher security measures along the U.S.-Canada border, causing difficulties for the movement of people and commerce across the border and angering Canadian and American businesses.

The U.S. message to Canada was straightforward: the security measures along the U.S.-Canada border would be relaxed if the security measures around Canada would be made tougher and made more similar to the measures the United States was taking to protect itself.

This became known as the perimeter security approach: Surrounding the entire North American continent with a robust security system so that security measures within the continent could be reduced.

This policy encountered fierce resistance in Canada, especially from civil libertarians who argued that the security measures the United States has adopted since 9/11 were too intrusive.

On 7 December 2011, Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama announced the Beyond the Border Action Plan: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness, which sets out priorities to enhance the two countries’ security and accelerate the flow of people, goods, and services across the U.S.-Canada border.

A number of initiatives and arrangements under the Beyond the Border Action Plan will require information sharing between Canada and the United States in order to establish the new, long-term partnership built on a perimeter approach to security and economic competitiveness. Public Safety Canada issued a statement saying that in order to ensure that personal information continues to be shared responsibly, and in accordance with the domestic laws of both countries, an overarching statement of privacy principles was developed to guide how information will be shared in Action Plan arrangements and initiatives.

The Joint Statement of Privacy Principles, which was developed by Public Safety Canada, the Department of Justice Canada, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Justice, consists of twelve principles. Some of the highlights of the principles include reference to:

• maintaining all reasonable efforts to ensure the accuracy of information, and the continued right to have access and to request corrections of errors;
• proper security safeguards for information;
• relevance and necessity in the collection of personal information;
• redress before existing national authorities where a person believes that his/her privacy has been infringed; and
• effective oversight in the form of a public supervisory authority/authorities.

Public Safety Canada says that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada was consulted in the development of these principles.

“Information sharing is vital to protecting the security of our citizens and to our mutual economic prosperity and must be done in accordance with domestic law,” the United States and Canada said in a joint statement. “The statement of privacy principles is an articulation of Canada and the United States’ commitment to ensuring the proper privacy safeguards are in place for sharing information.”

The Joint Statement of Privacy Principles is available here.