The following is excerpted from the 9 December 2010 edition of "montrealgazette.com".

Canada's privacy watchdog has launched a sweeping audit to find out whether the federal government is doing enough to protect the privacy of air travellers, given the heightened focus on national security.

Jennifer Stoddart, newly reappointed as the privacy commissioner of Canada for a three-year term, has devoted many hours in recent years to taking on online giants Facebook and Google. Stoddart said the "identity management" for citizens and consumers in the online world remains a priority -but so do national-security issues.

That's why Stoddart's office is conducting an air-travel security audit focusing on the government agency in charge of passenger screening, she said in an interview yesterday, a day after Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a congratulatory note about her reappointment being approved by Parliament.

In the case of the new full-body airport scanners -dubbed "naked scanners" by detractors -the audit will determine whether the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority is following through on promises made to minimize the privacy intrusions of this new technology. For example, the agency agreed that no record of the image would be kept and no personal information, such as a passenger's name or boarding pass number, would be associated with the scanned image...

The audit will also revisit whether the Passenger Protect Program has adequate controls and safeguards in place to protect personal information.

In November 2009, an earlier audit dealing exclusively with Canada's no-fly list found "several concerns" with the program, which was introduced in 2007 to prevent people named on a "specified persons list" from boarding flights to or from Canadian airports.

The 2009 audit found the deputy minister ultimately in charge of who is on the list was not provided with complete information to make informed decisions. Transport Canada, meanwhile, had not verified that airlines were complying with federal regulations related to the handling of the no-fly list, and there were no requirements that air carriers report to government security breaches involving personal information related to the no-fly list.

The more exhaustive air travel security audit, to be published next fall, was launched after Stoddart's office published a reference document to provide guidance to government agencies and departments about how to integrate privacy protections with new security objectives.