Canadians, Americans deem post-9/11 security laws intrusive, new study finds

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This article was published 13/11/2006 (7106 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO (CP) – The controversial idea of Canadians carrying a national identification card that bears their personal information has the support of more than half the country, a new study of public attitudes towards privacy suggests.

The cards – strongly opposed by privacy commissioners and civil libertarians despite calls for their use in the wake of the 9-11 terror attacks – are considered a good idea by 53 per cent of Canadians, according to a study released Monday by Queen’s University.

Still, 48 per cent of the study’s 1,001 Canadian respondents expressed concern that post-9-11 laws aimed at protecting national security are too intrusive – exposing a Canadian public “polarized” on issues of privacy, said one of the researchers behind the study.

“It’s a hotbed topic,” said Linda Harling-Stalker, a post-doctoral fellow at Queen’s.

“The thing that we’re really pointing out is the connection to anti-terrorism laws as it relates to your sense of a breach of personal information.”

The study, which looked at how 9,000 people in eight countries view surveillance and privacy, found Americans even more wary of post-9-11 legislation than Canadians.

The margin of error for the Canadian respondents portion of the study was plus or minus 3.1 per cent.

While 48 per cent of respondents in Canada felt such laws intrude on their privacy, that number rose to 57 per cent in the United States.

Although the United States is working on an ID card, only 44 per cent of Americans agreed with the idea.

The global move toward ID cards makes the argument against them moot, said Denis Coderre, the former immigration minister who spearheaded the campaign to bring them to Canada.

“You have over 176 countries right now with a national ID card,” said Coderre, who called the Conservative government “short-sighted” for suggesting an ID card program would be too expensive.

“The government won’t have any choice, because at the end of the day it will be imposed by international standards.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said the ID cards are not an option his government is leaning toward.

In 2003, Coderre proposed a plastic card that would contain not only personal data but also biometric information – such as fingerprints or retina scans.

“It’s more than the technology,” said Coderre.

“There’s a social conscience that should be attached to it. … We don’t want to create a (police state).”

The government agency issuing the cards would also become a central repository for the personal information contained on them. That has raised concerns from privacy commissioners and constitutional lawyers.

“It’s a bad idea because we don’t know exactly what will happen to the information that’s contained on the card,” said lawyer Morris Manning, who made submissions in 2003 to a Commons committee studying the issue.

“We have no assurance that the card itself will be used in a limited fashion, and that the information that’s stored cannot be accessed by those whom we don’t want to have access to it.”

Some Canadians appear to share that concern.

While 53 per cent either “strongly” or “somewhat” agreed with the idea of an ID card, only 43 per cent said they were confident Ottawa would be able to safeguard the information from privacy abuses.

Overall, less than half of Canadians said they trusted the federal government with their personal information, with the Americans at 38 per cent.

Brazilians proved especially suspect, with only 20 per cent saying they trust the government with their information.

By contrast, 63 per cent of Chinese respondents said they trusted their government.

Earlier this month, a study released by the London-based Privacy International ranked Germany and Canada the best defenders of privacy.

The Queen’s University study, which asked questions on a number of privacy-related issues, also found that two-thirds of Canadian respondents were worried about providing personal information on websites.

Also, 58 per cent of Canadians rejected racial profiling at airports for security purposes while 48 per cent of Americans raised the same objection.