Passport Canada is looking into creating a computerised tool to screen photographs of new applicants against images of criminal and terrorist suspects.
This facial recognition system will the first large scale Canadian involvement in biometrics. But hosting 21 million or so images of applicants is raising concerns from privacy and civil rights groups. The tool will compare passport applicants photographs with images from security watch lists and halt those not eligible for a passport from obtaining one.
The contract is to be awarded in November. A regional trial will be conducted in early 2007 with a national roll-out by late next year.
