Transportation

Canadian border inspections hit by kiosk outage

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May 19, 2026

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A system outage at the Canada Border Services Agency temporarily disrupted primary inspection kiosks at 11 major Canadian airports on May 18, according to a CP24 report, forcing travelers to move through manual processing lines staffed by border officers. The outage affected kiosks used to process arriving international passengers at airports including Toronto Pearson, Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal-Trudeau and Ottawa.

The CBSA said the disruption began around 1:30 a.m. EDT and impacted both traveler systems and commercial shipping operations. The agency later announced that kiosk operations had been restored, though officials warned travelers could continue experiencing delays as airports worked through backlogs created during the outage.

Primary inspection kiosks have become a central part of passenger processing at many Canadian airports, allowing travelers to submit customs declarations and identification information electronically before meeting with border officers. The agency said it is still investigating the cause of the disruption but noted there is no indication the outage was related to a cyberattack.