International students applying to study down under will now have to undergo biometric scanning to help protect Australia from fraud and terrorism, raising privacy concerns from student groups— and Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) says the policy could come here in the near future.
The Australian policy was introduced after that country’s Department of Immigration received a risk assessment that raised concerns about identity fraud among student visa applicants, according to Lily Yuen, international student officer for the National Union of Students in Australia, in an email.
“Enhanced identity checking using biometrics will reduce the opportunity for identity fraud to be used for fraudulent entry into Australia,” said the national communications branch of the Australian department of immigration and citizenship in a press release.
The biometric scanning will involve taking a facial picture of the person, along with a 10-digit fingerprint of the individual, Yuen said. Yuen said the biometric process would follow that of what has already been implemented in Britain.
“[The program] actually pulls Australia in line with other western countries such as the USA and U.K.,” Robert Atcheson, head of the Council of International Students of Australia (CISA), said in an email.
A similar program may soon be implemented for visa applicants in Canada, according to CIC.
In partnership with the Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP, CIC is leading a five-year project to introduce biometrics into Canada’s temporary resident program, said CIC spokesperson Karen Shadd in an email.
She said this would include visitors applying for visas, work permits and study permits in Canada.
“The use of biometrics will bolster Canada’s existing measures to reduce identity fraud and enhance the safety and security of Canadians,” Shadd said. “Enrolling biometrics of visa and permit applicants overseas will help identify mala fide travellers before they reach our borders.”
In Australia, students have raised concerns about the use and availability of the biometric data to various government sectors.
“While this is a laudable initiative, CISA is concerned with the security of the applicant’s data,” Atcheson said.
“The Migration Act, which governs this program, allows for a broad range of Australian government agencies as well as other countries and international organizations to have access to the information as well,” he said. “There is a lack of specificity as to the conditions under which this information will be provided to these other organizations.”
“There is no independent regulator who oversees the release of this information before it is actually released,” Atcheson added.
“This provides the government with almost unlimited discretion as to the release of an applicant’s information,” he said.
There are already measures in place to protect students’ privacy, according to Yuen.
Privacy legislation protects the confidential information of foreign students and allows the students to request to see government documents containing their information.
“The legislation also provides safeguards, including specifying the purposes for which [identifying information] can be used and disclosed, and establishing a strict regime for their storage and management,” according to a press release by national communications branch of the Australian department of immigration and citizenship.
“There are also provisions to ensure that identifying information will not be disclosed in certain circumstances and limiting the disclosure of the information to other countries,” the press release clarified.
The biometric scanning will not only be applied to student visas but to all visa applicants to Australia, according to Yuen.
“This will be done on all overseas students coming to Australia. This will also concern those applying for visas offshore,” Yuen said. “Those applying for permanent residency would be part of the picture as well.”
“[The process] currently is aimed at people who lodge paper applications and will eventually be expanded to include online applications as well,” Atcheson said.
However, as a result of of the biometrics program, there has been a rising feeling that international students are not welcome in Australia, according to Yuen.
“It is understandable, that as a measure to combat identity fraud and terrorism, that prospective overseas students do fall in the picture,” she said.
“However, this being, said, it is very important that those measures are implemented with sensitivity, especially with the decline in the international students coming to Australia."