Criminals have found ways to bypass Canada’s multimillion-dollar electronic visa system intended to maintain national security and public safety, according to a federal report recently released by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
“Those with malicious intent, including associations with fraud and human trafficking/smuggling movements, have found workarounds,” according to the report titled “Evaluation of the Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) Program” and August 2022.
One of the program’s main goals was “pushing out the border,” according to the report, meaning to pre-screen and identify foreign nationals who are inadmissible to Canada and prevent them from travelling to the country. However, immigration officers reported that the eTA only had a “small or moderate” benefit to security-related outcomes. Less than 25 percent of officers surveyed felt that the electronic visa acted as a deterrent to those with “intentions to misuse/abuse eTA.”…