Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
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Cross Often? Make it Simple
Each time he flies between Canada and the United States, Michael Campbell feels a little special.
As a member of NEXUS a program designed to simplify border crossings for pre-approved, low-risk travellers, Mr. Campbell speeds up the process at Vancouver International Airport. Instead, he stops at a self-serve kiosk where a machine takes a digital picture of his eye to confirm his identity, asks him to answer the standard customs and immigration questions on a touch-screen and sends him on his way to collect his baggage.
Mr. Campbell, 65, the co-owner of a hotel in Penticton, B.C., is one of a growing number of trusted travellers from Canada and the U.S. who are taking advantage of the expanding NEXUS program to streamline their border crossings.
"It gives me express access," says Mr. Campbell, who flies to the U.S. about a dozen times a year and has also used his NEXUS card for returning to Canada from abroad. "When you come back after a 15-hour flight, it's special to be whisked through in a matter of minutes."
NEXUS is a joint program of Canada and United States initiated under the Shared Border Accord at major land crossings in 2001 and expanded to air travel in a pilot program for passengers flying in and out of Vancouver in 2004. The program was integrated last December to include air, land and marine travellers on one card. More than 120,000 NEXUS members from Canada and the U.S. enjoy the privileges of membership. The initiative, under the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, improves services to the travelling public while maintaining safety and security.
Earlier this year, NEXUS began at Toronto's Pearson International Airport and Montreal's Pierre Trudeau International Airport; the airports in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Halifax are to follow by the end of the year. There are currently 11 land borders with dedicated NEXUS lanes. For boaters, there are 450 designated marine reporting sites that allow NEXUS members to call up to four hours in advance of crossing the border by water.
The NEXUS card serves as an alternative to a passport for entry into the United States by air under the U.S. Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI), and it is anticipated that the card will be acceptable when the WHTI is extended to land and sea travel.
The wallet-size cards cost CAN$80 for a five-year membership and are free for children under 18. Obtaining membership in NEXUS is a two-stage process that takes four to six weeks. An application form available online is first submitted to NEXUS to determine each applicant's eligibility. Those who qualify are invited to visit a NEXUS enrollment centre for an interview with officers of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the U.S. Border Protection Service. If they are approved, their fingerprints are recorded, a digital photograph is taken of their iris and they walk out with their NEXUS card.
At airport NEXUS kiosks, located in the Canadian Inspection Services and U.S. pre-clearance areas, a voice-activated machine takes a digital picture of the traveller's iris to compare unique elements with the stored image.
"It's clearance in the blink of an eye," says Mike Feniak, the Director of the Traveller Projects and Systems Division in the CBSA's Innovation, Science and Technology Branch. He says that the program, the only one of its kind in the world between countries, not only lets low-risk travellers avoid line-ups but also helps border services officers focus on unknown and potentially higher-risk travellers and goods.
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