p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- This April is the last month people will be able to apply for passports online.

“Passport On-Line was launched in 2005 with great fanfare, and a promise to reduce wait times by allowing Canadians to pre-process their application,” says the CBC.

Following complaints from Canada’s privacy commissioner about “sloppy security at the agency, and an embarrassing online security breach more than a year ago,” the service is being closed down, says the story.

Trying to play down the breach, which came to light when a curious passport applicant noticed that by changing a few numbers in the URL of his own online application you could suddenly see other applications’ submissions, a Passport Canada spokesman called it an “isolated anomaly“.

“I’m just curious about these things so I tried it, and boom, there was somebody else’s name and somebody else’s data,” as well as social insurance numbers, driver’s licence numbers and addresses, said Jamie Laning in the Globe and Mail.

“Also available were home and business phone numbers, a federal ID card number and even a firearms licence number,” said the story.

According to Passport Canada, however, the online service is being shut down because it’s not as “convenient” for Canadians as using downloadable forms that must be taken in person to a passport office, says the CBC, noting as of June 1, “most Canadians travelling by land or water to U.S. destinations must carry a passport”.

The only convenience, “will be enjoyed by Passport Canada, which a little more than a year ago found itself in hot water (again!) when an average user was able to play around with the agency’s site URLs and see personal information about other users,” says ITWorld, adding:

“The response then was equally weird: Passport Canada emphasized the fact that nothing bad happened to anyone, rather than being proactive about improving its ability to protect user information. The Privacy Commissioner’s office was not pleased.

“Now, according to the agency’s Web site, the online service is “stepping aside” in favour of interactive forms, a technique that was last considered innovative in 1998. From a public sector electronic service delivery standpoint, this has to be the more bizaare reversal, well, ever.”

CBC – Online passport application being phased out, April 13, 2009
isolated anomaly – Huge Canada Passport breach ‘resolved’, December 7, 2007,
Globe and Mail – Passport applicant finds massive privacy breach, December 4, 2007
ITWorld – Passport Canada doesn’t want data travelling online anymore, April 13, 2009