U.S. and Canada join forces to test defense initiatives

• By Wilson P. Dizard III
• Dec 13, 2002

The Homeland Security Office and the Canadian government jointly announced progress on the Smart Border Action Plan, which includes several IT projects.

Some of the plan's 30 points cover:

• Developing joint standards for interoperable biometric identification cards


• Sharing information on asylum seekers


• Sharing data via the Advanced Passenger Information and Passenger Name Records program


• Planning parallel and compatible immigration databases, including a study by U.S. agencies of Canadian intelligence-gathering software


• Harmonized commercial processing for low-risk shipments


• Studying joint border-crossing facilities


• Teaming the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force with the new Canadian Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams


• Developing a system for fingerprint exchange between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the FBI


• Sharing information on terrorist asset freezing.