Canadian Government Eases Biometric Background Check Requirements Due to COVID-19

The Canadian Federal Government has relaxed its fingerprinting requirements for new hires during the COVID-19 pandemic. In normal circumstances, a fingerprint scan is part of the normal background check process that employees must complete to gain security clearance. However, social distancing protocols have made it more difficult to obtain those prints, so government agencies have been given permission to grant conditional security clearances.

The new policy is temporary, and was made with the assumption that all new hires will eventually submit to a fingerprint scan once it is safe to do so. The decision was made to make sure that departments could keep up with their staffing requirements during the crisis, and applies to all agencies that fall under the Policy on Government Security.

Conditional clearance is granted on a case-by-case basis, at the discretion of the department head of the agency doing the hiring, and is intended only for low-risk positions. In the meantime, hiring departments are relying on other security measures. That includes a background check, a credit check, and a name search in criminal databases, as well as an evaluation of the candidate’s educational history and professional credentials.

The new policy has been in place since mid-March, though it is only being publicized now. Many of the people granted conditional security clearances have since performed a fingerprint scan to complete the process. It’s also worth noting that the government has not relaxed its security standards for classified materials, so anyone viewing sensitive information will have fulfilled all of the usual security requirements.

Since hiring is handled within each department, Canada’s Treasury Board Secretariat did not know the total number of clearances that have been granted during the pandemic. The policy itself is comparable to one implemented by the Office of Personnel Management in the U.S., which has also eased its typical fingerprinting requirements for health and safety reasons.

Companies like NextgenID have introduced remote onboarding solutions to help government agencies meet their credentialing requirements while maintaining a safe social distance.

Source: CBC

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July 23, 2020 – by Eric Weiss