Travellers to Canada face AI screening

Individuals seeking entry to Canada are now subject to AI (artificial intelligence) screening on entry to Canada at a number of land border ports of entry (POEs).

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has developed a new tool, the Traveller Compliance Indicator (TCI), to assist its officers in screening those seeking entry to Canada.

The tool is currently in use at 6 land border crossings, which the government has not disclosed.

The TCI assigns those entering Canada a “compliance score”, helping CBSA officers decide whether a traveller or the goods they are bringing into the country should be referred for secondary inspection.

The CBSA intends to roll out the TCI to all land border crossings by the end of 2027, with further deployment at air and marine ports of entry to follow.

The CBSA intends the TCI to increase efficiency and improve AI security screening at Canada’s border crossings.

What is the impact on those entering Canada?

The CBSA says the aim of using the TCI is to improve the traveller experience by reducing processing times and avoiding secondary security referrals caused by “false positives” (where a traveller is wrongly recommended for AI security screening despite being fully compliant with Canada’s entry rules).

Mistaken security referrals place an additional burden on CBSA processing while slowing processing times at border crossings for travellers.

The department states that the TCI improves efficiency at border crossings by using predictive analytics (based on five years of previous CBSA data) to help border services officers quickly identify compliant travellers and allow them through with fewer delays.

Although the department is optimistic about the rollout of the TCI, its report to the Treasury Board of Canada also notes that if a CBSA officer acts on an inaccurate recommendation from the system (such as a false flag), this could have long-term consequences.

In statements to various media outlets, the CBSA has stressed that the TCI will be used as a decision-support tool, with CBSA officers making all final decisions.

The department also notes the potential benefit to its operational capacity from using the TCI, which it says could not be matched simply by recruiting more officers.

How the TCI applies AI screening to those entering Canada

The TCI uses artificial intelligence and predictive modelling to generate a compliance score for each traveller. Developed using five years of CBSA traveller data, the system aggregates and analyses information from a number of existing databases in real time.

If a traveller has entered Canada through one of the selected crossings where the tool has been deployed, they have already been subject to this screening.

The TCI considers a range of “direct identifying factors” about those entering Canada in order to form a judgement on their entry compliance, including

• Travel history from CBSA records
• Mode of transport (for example, vehicle, aircraft or vessel)
• Whether the traveller is alone or accompanied
• The type of identity document presented
• Vehicle details such as the licence plate number

This data is compared against established compliance patterns to predict whether a traveller is likely to comply with the Customs Act and similar regulations that the CBSA is mandated to enforce.

The score does not itself determine the outcome; rather, it generates a flag showing officers whether “a person’s information matches a compliance pattern”, which in turn helps the officer decide whether to refer the traveller for secondary inspection.

The TCI has been piloted at 6 land border crossings where it has been in use since 2023.6

With an investment of more than 15 million dollars, and expected annual maintenance costs of around 700,000 dollars, the TCI forms part of a wider CBSA modernisation initiative aimed at protecting Canada’s borders and managing growing traveller volumes without significantly expanding staffing or infrastructure.