Photo: The Canadian Press

A budding cross-border data exchange with the United States is quietly helping Canada crack down on immigration violators.

The federal government has flagged more than 1,000 possible cases of people overstaying their visas or committing other immigration infractions based on information provided by the United States, newly obtained memos show.

Under a 2011 continental security pact, Canada and the United States agreed to set up co-ordinated systems to track the entry and exit information of travellers.

The effort involves exchanging entry information collected from people at the land border — so that data on entry to one country serves as a record of exit from the other.

Canada says the information will be helpful in everything from tracking known fugitives to responding more effectively to missing-child alerts.

The federal NDP and privacy advocates are watching closely, however, out of concern the data could be used to build invasive personal profiles with little accountability.

The data includes the traveller's name, nationality, date of birth and gender, the country that issued their travel document and the time, date and location of their crossing.

The first two phases of the program were limited to foreign nationals and permanent residents of Canada and the U.S., but not citizens of either country.

Canada's border agency has begun sharing information with U.S. Homeland Security about the thousands of American citizens who cross into Canada each day. Legislation being debated in Parliament would allow Washington to provide Ottawa with similar information about Canadians entering the U.S.

But the newly disclosed memos say the preliminary phases are already helping Canada zero in on people who may be running afoul of immigration laws.

Between June 2013 and October 2015, Canada received nine million exit records from the U.S., resulting in over 1,000 cases being referred to immigration officials. Such data is helpful in identifying visitors who stay in Canada longer than their visa allows.

It can also establish that someone has left Canada, leading to cancellation of 26 immigration warrants and 69 removal orders during the period.