Privacy protections

Biometric information is personal information and must therefore be safeguarded at a Protected Level B. Biometric information can only be collected in support of an application.

Only software provided by the Government of Canada can be used for this purpose, with the exception of U.S. Application Service Centres, which use their own hardware and software. Access to the Canadian Immigration Biometric Identification System is controlled through a secure log-in process.

Biometric information is encrypted by the respective biometric collection system prior to transmission to Canada. The biometric information is automatically deleted from the collection point after it has been successfully transmitted. Biometric information collected is shared with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency, the RCMP and Canada’s Migration 5 partners (Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States), as well as any other partners indicated in the application disclosure form.

It is only used for the purposes of assessing the admissibility of the applicants and for limited secondary uses established in the Regulations. Applicants are informed of the use of their biometric information in the privacy notice included on applications.