Five Country Conference increases interoperability

NEW ZEALAND: Fingerprints catch out immigration fraudster (TV NZ)

[Immigration New Zealand] found that her fingerprints matched those of a person who had entered Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom using different names.

INZ says landmark cooperation between authorities in all four countries resulted in the successful prosecution.

INZ's Identity Services manager Jacqui Martin says this is the first time evidence like fingerprints gathered as a result of cooperation under the Five Countries Conference (FCC) has been used in a prosecution for immigration fraud.

Score one for the Five Country Conference.

Is the Five Country Conference hitting its stride on ID?

The US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand (Five Country Conference) share information, including biometrics, on foreign visitors. Reading between the lines of the article linked below, they appear to hitting their stride.

Biometrics has "just completely changed the way we do business," DHS director of US-VISIT. (Fierce Homeland Security)

See also:
Privacy Impact Assessment for the US-VISIT Five Country Joint Enrollment and Information-Sharing Project (2009 pdf at DHS.gov)

Biometric Information Sharing and the Five Country Conference

[UPDATE: Paid subscription required to view older articles]
Biometrics programs prompt privacy concerns (Embassy.ca) 

The linked article contains a wealth of information on the mechanics of how Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand (the Five Country Conference) have agreed to share biometric information on people seeking entrance into the named countries.

A third party did a privacy impact assessment of the sharing protocol in 2009 with recommendations to mitigate privacy risks, to which all government agencies involved agreed and began implementing. Canada is working with its Five Country Conference partners to ensure privacy by, for instance, making sure all fingerprints are anonymously shared and can't be linked to a person unless a match is made, destroying fingerprints once a search is done, and exchanging more information only after a match is made.

They use encryption and security tools to protect files shared electronically. Everything passes through a secure central server in Australia.

Canada knows information shared between countries is being kept secure because they've each signed memoranda of understanding with each other governing how the information is to be managed, said Ms. Caron.

Canada, UK Deepen Five Country Conference Relationship

Canada-United Kingdom joint declaration: “A Stronger Partnership for the 21st Century”

Securing our Countries
We will continue to work with Afghan and international partners to help build a more viable country that is better governed, more stable and secure, and never again a safe haven for terrorists.  Through the training of Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), regional diplomacy, and development assistance, we are working to help enable the transition of security in Afghanistan to the ANSF by the end of 2014.

We will create greater interoperability between our defence forces and deepen cooperation on procurement and capabilities, to be enabled in part by a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Defence Material Cooperation, existing MoUs and the “Partners in Defence” dialogue, which will draw on the lessons of current and recent national and NATO-led operations.

We will strengthen our counter-terrorism collaboration, in particular in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and South Asia, including our efforts to tackle terrorist finance activity in third countries.

We will advance shared objectives on migration, including through the Five Country Conference on biometric and other information sharing and service delivery partnerships.

Building on the excellent relationship following evacuations of our nationals from Libya and Egypt this year, we will improve cooperation on consular services through joint contingency planning in third countries, and through staff exchanges between our Crisis Centres.