Canadian border guards have been screening travellers using a huge, secretive US anti-terrorism database that is almost never referred to publicly, new documents reveal.
The database, called Tuscan, is provided to every Canadian border guard and immigration officer, and empowers them to detain, interrogate, arrest and deny entry to anyone found on it.
Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by the Guardian through Canada’s access to information system reveal the fullest picture yet of a database that, although employed in Canada, is maintained exclusively by the US. It contains the personal information of as many as 680,000 people believed by US authorities to be linked with terrorism, and functions effectively as a second no-fly list that is cloaked in secrecy.
Canada’s official no-fly list is called the Passenger Protect Program, which lists known and suspected terrorists who are forbidden from flying to or from Canada. One estimate concludes it has around 100,000 names, and the government has offered a redress so travellers can apply to have their name removed.
Tuscan, however, is much larger and is managed entirely by the US government. There is no clear process in Canada to have your name removed from the list – nor would the US be required to oblige.
What’s more, while Canada’s no-fly list only applies to airports, Tuscan extends to every land and sea border in Canada, as well as visa and immigration applications.
Ottawa has never formally recognised the scope of Tuscan, although it is forging ahead with a closely guarded plan to expand and update it. Originally created in 1997 as a consular aid, the list was repurposed and expanded after 9/11, and in 2016 Justin Trudeau and Barack Obama agreed to expand it still further.