Calgary Sun, Apr 9, 2004 “ID card plan fails grade” (http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/CalgarySun/News/2004/04/09/414457.html)

www.parl.gc.ca, October 7, 2003, House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration Interim Report: “A National Identity Card for Canada?”

More Resources on National ID Card

www.cippic.ca, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
National ID Cards

Ontario Considers Biometric Drivers’ Licenses

GlobeandMail.com, Jan 16, 2004, CP: “Ontario eyes retinal licences” (http://globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040116.gtscan0116/BNStory/Technology/?)

Transportation Minister Harinder Takhar “said Ontario is working with a North American group that is examining common security standards and features for drivers’ licences in all provinces and U.S. states in the wake of Sept. 11.”

Also mentioned are the real reasons for the changes – besides the convenient terrorism excuse.  Of course I have no problem with fingerprinting terrorists! But it’s not a terrorist-fingerprinting exercise, is it?

GlobeandMail.com, Jan 16, 2004, Gloria Galloway
“Ontario considering putting biometric data on drivers’ licences”
[fingerprints or iris scans] (http://globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040116/DRIVERSLIC16//?)

This article mentions what groups the Ontario government is really “consulting” – before they get to the public.

Hey! Maybe they will ask you what you think before decisions are made that violate privacy rights and “create large databases of personal information against the wishes of private citizens“. Maybe you’re all for that.

Actually, “Brian Beamish, the director of policy and compliance for Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner” expressed his concern about whether the “biometric was deployed in a way that would facilitate the possibility of surveillance or act as a de facto ID card.” They heard from him. I wonder if they have heard anything from the “public” yet – probably not the ones they wanted to hear from. Of course it’s possible they’ll wait for the right time to ask the “public” through some poll if it’s okay to destroy freedom.

He says the “continent” is “coming to common standards“, although the “continent” doesn’t even have a decision-making legislature, does it?  It doesn’t have its own brain either.

Here’s a suggestion: forget the vested interest decision-making. How about giving us a choice about whether we want to be fingerprinted like criminals, and allow us to stay with the regular drivers’ license if we choose.

We must demand a choice like that, so that our freedom and privacy is respected. We own our fingerprints, our iris scan, our personal information – we own our own lives. A drivers’ license is just for driving, but instead it is being turned into an instrument of oppression.

These governments don’t want to be our servants. They want to treat us like they own us, as if we’re prisoners and terrorists – just like the U.S. government thinks it owns the world and goes around provoking the terrorism from which we’re supposedly being protected.

If you oppose this – when and if it comes around again – tell people what you think. Don’t just go along.

(Original Post)