I’ve Been Can-Passed
And friends, somewhere in Washington, enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints.
Ok, so replace Washington with Ottawa and fingerprints with scan-of-my-iris and you have the general idea.
As you may or may not know, I fly to the United States on a fairly regular basis. It seems that every time I return to Calgary I have the bad luck to be on a plane that has landed just behind a jumbo jet coming in from London or Frankfurt with several hundred travelers that made it into the customs line before me, allowing me to enjoy a 30-60 minute wait before I can spend the next two and a half hours driving home.
To compound things, I get to stare with envy at the non-existent line for the Can-Pass machines, where those special chosen people can zip through customs with no more than an iris scan and a few touchscreen questions:
I finally decided to stop cursing them and their new-fangled technology and joined them instead. After waiting a few weeks for processing and a background check ,I stopped by the enrollment office today for my iris scan before checking in for my flight to San Francisco. The scan didn’t hurt (too much) and will allow me to walk smugly past the waiting lines upon my return this Thursday.
So long faceless crowds, I have risen above! Next stop: Nexus, granting the same benefit for entry to the US.
