Sean Fraser, the Immigration Minister of Canada, recently announced IRCC uses the Artificial Intelligence to streamline visa applications.
Though it’s good news for those waiting for their Temporary Residency Visa (TRV) to become Permanent Residency visa, many worry whether the AI would start rejecting visa applications too based on various biases.
Moreover, many feel unsettled about their jobs as the AI has been taking over many job positions that were once thought better suited for humans.
Stay with us through this news on “Canada uses AI in visa processing” to know the details of the situation.
How is IRCC using AI in application processing?
Recently, the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada Minister, Sean Fraser, spoke at a press conference in Vancouver. There, he mentioned that IRCC has lately been taking advantage of Artificial Intelligence to process visa applications faster.
Fraser said that, “by increasing our use of technology, advanced analytics and streamlining our processing we’ve done a couple of very important things in recent months.” AI has been able to process 98% of the spousal temporary residency visa applications. Further, the minister made promises to process new applications in under 30 days.
The impact of the use of artificial intelligence has been on all the various aspects of the application processing. Many are taking advantage of the faster processing of visa applications, however, this has led many to analyze, “is this why Canada has been able to invite so many immigrants every year?” The answer is probably yes. But Canada firmly rejects any notion or belief that says an AI accept or reject a visa.
According to the government, AI only does a few things that need not be done by the officers. The tasks done by the artificial intelligence are below:-
- On the basis of the application’s characteristics, the AI would assign applications to certain officers.
- The artificial intelligence is capable of checking the eligibility requirements
- AI would create annotations, meaning it would summarize the important information of the client so that the officer wouldn’t have to search Canada’s Global Case Management System. The Global Case Management System is used by IRCC to process immigration applications.
- If an application requires more information, the AI would be able to detect that.
- Artificial intelligence is also capable of assessing biometric information.
- The AI is perfectly capable of prioritizing clients and responding to their enquiries. It would only provide information which is publicly available,
Will AI Reject or Approve Your Visa?
Though the government says that the AI will help in clearing up not so important tasks faster so that the busy officials could focus on the complex applications, still there are some concerns regarding this whole matter.
IRCC firmly rejects the so-called notion that the AI used to process applications faster would also be able to reject or approve a visa.
Since, there are no definite algorithms used by the IRCC to approve or reject visa applications, similarly AI would not be able to do so either.
The final decision of whether or not the candidate would be issued a visa does not lie on an artificial intelligence.
