Supporting Monitoring and Compliance
Classification: Unclassified
Branch/Agency: TB/IEB/ISTB/CBSA
Proposed Response:
- As of March 25, at PHAC’s direction, the CBSA began informing travellers that it is mandatory to isolate or quarantine for 14 days upon entry into Canada.
- The CBSA has put in place measures to assist PHAC in their efforts to monitor and enforce compliance of the mandatory self-isolation orders through the expansion of traveller contact information collection for all travellers arriving to Canada in land and air mode, and through temporary lookouts.
Traveller Information Collection to Support Compliance and Monitoring
- As of March 31, the CBSA expanded mandatory contact information collection to all travellers arriving by all modes – land, air or sea.
- On behalf of PHAC, the CBSA captures basic biographical data, and contact information for the passenger while in Canada.
- All traveller information collected is provided to PHAC, who determines when and how to share this information with provincial authorities and/or law enforcement.
- Individuals exempt from the 14 day self-isolation requirement are exempt from providing their contact information.
- As of April 24, over 300,000 records have been shared with PHAC to support compliance and monitoring as it relates to travellers required to mandatory quarantine or isolate for 14 days.
Temporary Lookouts
- The CBSA is also creating temporary lookouts in its system to support PHAC efforts to ensure that:
- asymptomatic travellers comply with directions to self-isolate following entry to Canada; and
- symptomatic travellers who are instructed to isolate in accordance with the Quarantine Act comply with those orders.
- Lookouts are not issued on all asymptomatic travellers, but rather on those the CBSA believes may not have respected the requirement to quarantine or isolate and those who have signaled an unwillingness to comply.
- The CBSA has been sharing information related to the lookouts with the RCMP daily. The RCMP has agreed to provide this information to the police of jurisdiction.
- As of May 1, 2020, 122 lookouts have been shared with PHAC and the RCMP.
- The CBSA is also sharing relevant lookouts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and has shared 69 lookouts to date.
- The lookout information is maintained for a period of 14 days from the date of entry.
- The CBSA will continue to support PHAC compliance and enforcement of the Quarantine Act, including providing information at the border.
Background:
Contact Tracing for all travellers in air and land mode – as of April 23
The CBSA is leveraging its existing random referral process to assist PHAC in its efforts to enforce compliance with mandatory quarantine or isolation requirements.
The CBSA is requiring all travellers arriving in Canada in all modes to provide contact information, regardless if they are symptomatic or not. Individuals exempt from the 14 day quarantine requirement are exempt from the information collection provision requirement.
Travellers in air can currently provide the information by using the paper form, or the PHAC online form. In land, travellers provide the information to the BSO who enters the information into a new desktop application created by the CBSA for the purpose of collecting the information for PHAC.
Contact information of all travellers subject to a mandatory self-isolation order is captured when the traveller seeks entry into Canada. Provision of the information requested by the CBSA on behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada is mandatory under the Quarantine Act. Travellers are thus required to provide their email, address while in Canada, and phone number. If a traveller does not provide this information, they may be subject to additional measures, such as a requirement to undergo a health assessment, or charged with an offence under the Quarantine Act.
The ArriveCan application, co-created by PHAC and the CBSA was launched nationally on April 29th, and travellers are encouraged to use it as an alternative to the PHAC’s online or paper COVID-19 contact tracing form. As of May 2nd, ArriveCAN was downloaded 9,465 times from the Google Play and Apple Stores, where it is available to download.
The ArriveCAN App requires additional information, such as flight or border crossing information, and there is a new question on whether travellers are exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 and whether they have a self-isolation plan.
ArriveCAN provides an opportunity to reduce points of contacts at POEs and improve onerous manual processes with data automation.
The ArriveCAN app cannot be used to track people’s location automatically through their phone or via GPS, nor is it a surveillance tool. The protection of Canadians’ information is a priority for the Government of Canada, and any tool used to collect personal information undergoes a rigorous privacy assessment.
Lookouts – as of March 29
Pursuant to section 107(4)(e) of the Customs Act, the CBSA is creating temporary lookouts in its ICES database to ensure non-symptomatic travellers comply with directions on self-isolation following entry to Canada, and to ensure that symptomatic travellers who are issued a quarantine order under the Quarantine Act comply with those orders.
These procedures apply where:
- a border examination reveals that an asymptomatic traveller may not be in compliance with a previous direction to self-isolate (i.e. crossing the border when they had returned to Canada within the previous 14 day period); or
- in the context of a border examination and direction to self-isolate, the traveller’s overt responses suggest an intent to not comply with the direction; or
- a traveller who is found to be symptomatic by the PHAC quarantine officer and provided a red handout by the BSO, or a quarantine order is made against a traveller.
Domestic information sharing on lookouts
The lookout information is maintained for a period of 14 days from the date of entry; however, in some cases where an individual crosses multiple times the date of the expiry is extended to 14 days after the last entry. The CBSA notifies PHAC and the RCMP of each case. The RCMP is sharing these lookouts with police of jurisdiction, but is also the conduit for all other information that PHAC wants to share with law enforcement. Since CBSA is also sharing the lookout information with PHAC, PHAC may include it as a priority for compliance checks in their own information push to the RCMP.
Information sharing with the United States on lookouts
The CBSA shares information with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (U.S. CPB) on cases involving a U.S. citizens, U.S. permanent residents, persons employed in the U.S. or those that entered Canada from the U.S., through the automated lookout sharing process. At this time, U.S. CBP is not issuing similar lookouts in the U.S.
Fines/Penalties
While penalties for non-compliance under the Quarantine Act exist (e.g., from fines up to and including imprisonment), the enforcement of penalties does not fall under the purview of the CBSA. Border Services Officers (BSOs) do not have enforcement powers under the Quarantine Act, and are not peace officers for the purposes of general law enforcement. As such, the CBSA can only share information with the PHAC, who then determines appropriate follow up including information sharing with law enforcement of jurisdiction.
Contacts:
Approved by: Jacques Cloutier, Vice-President, Intelligence and Enforcement Branch, [REDACTED] and Denis Vinette, Vice-President, Travellers Branch, [REDACTED]
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