Every detail on her status card from Indigenous Services Canada was correct — except for the photo

When Cynthia Williams received her Certificate of Indian Status card from Indigenous Services Canada (ISC), she says she was shocked to see it had the wrong picture on it.

All the information was correct, but the image was of someone she didn't recognize.

Williams, from the village of Witset, 400 kilometres northwest of Prince George in B.C.'s central Interior, applied for the card in August of 2022 and got it this August. After the one-year wait, she says she was so discouraged she couldn't muster up the energy to try to correct the situation.

Earlier this month though, Williams finally decided to take to social media to see if she could find out whose picture was on her card.

She quickly got her answer and has since been in contact with ISC. But now Williams and the person on her card — Marnie Brenner of Williams Lake, B.C. — have just as many questions as answers about the mix-up.

"I'm so disappointed because they never told me what happened to my picture," Williams told CBC. "Is it on somebody else's [card]? Nobody told me [anything]."

Brenner, meanwhile, says she realizes mistakes can happen but she wonders about the system that's in place for issuing so-called "secure" status cards.

"In my experience, if it's happened once, it's happened more than once," said Brenner, whose own photo is on her own status card.

"If it's happened twice, then we really should be looking at the system and be correcting it as soon as possible."

'It's a bit disconcerting'

Williams posted the faulty status card on her Facebook page and says it generated a lot of comments right away. She says the post was shared 61 times, and that led to the connection with Brenner.

When Brenner was first informed of the post, she says she thought it was some kind of scam. But once she actually saw it — and saw her picture on the card — she says she thought to herself, "That's not good."

Brenner says she has now been considering the detailed process Indigenous people have to go through to get status cards, and the "breach" of her personal information that resulted in her photo ending up on someone else's card.

"You wonder, 'Why is my picture just kicking around?'" Brenner said. "I'm curious how that happens.

"It's a bit disconcerting."

Quality assurance measures are in place: ISC

According to the federal government, a status card shows that an individual is registered under the Indian Act and "has certain benefits and rights," including education, specific tax exemptions and non-insured health services. A card also signifies a person's eligibility for "a range of federal and provincial or territorial programs and services."

The federal government also notes the ISC began to issue secure status cards in 2009 to help protect registered persons from identity theft.

In an emailed statement to CBC, an ISC spokesperson said printing errors on cards "are rare occurrences … and when identified, any card wrongfully issued is cancelled and a correct card is reissued promptly."

The statement also said ISC and its third-party card printer "have quality assurance measures in place to prevent these types of issues, however they can occur at no fault of the applicant."

According to the statement, new cards are issued "within a week or two of the discovery of the error."

Brenner says she has not heard directly from ISC about her photo being on Williams's card.

As for Williams, she says she was told by an ISC representative she would have to reapply for a card. Williams, however, says she has yet to do so.

"I just spoke to our local band office, the lady that does status cards, and she told me to come in tomorrow," Williams said on Thursday afternoon.

"I never got around to it because I'm still disappointed. The timeline to apply — I have people getting passports faster, and my B.C. ID came in faster, my [driver's] license came in faster."