RCMP records for vetting firearm licences under new controls for sales of non-restricted rifles and shotguns will not be accessible to police and other law enforcement agencies, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale’s office says.

A spokesperson for Goodale made the statement Thursday after a firearms industry lobby group expressed concern that the government intends to use an existing RCMP computer platform for restricted firearms to process data for licence verification under the Liberal gun legislation now making its way through the Senate.

Representatives of the group, the Canadian Sporting Arms and Ammunition Association (CSAAA), told a Senate committee studying the legislation, Bill C-71, that access to the online platform for the registry of restricted firearms requires the entry of personal information, including name and address, gun licence numbers and telephone numbers.

[READ MORE: Liberals plan to put long-gun buyer data in registry: lobby group]

Under Bill C-71, retailers would have to verify a buyer’s licence through the RCMP registrar before selling a long-gun, but the only information the legislation would allow to be provided to the registrar is the buyer’s firearm licence number and the retailer’s licence number.

No details of the firearm would be sent, either by phone or online.

Following an iPolitics report on the committee testimony, it emerged that Goodale’s director of policy and Parliamentary Affairs, David Hurl, told the CSAAA in a meeting last fall that the long-gun verification data would be kept by the Registrar of Firearms, who is in charge of the registry for restricted and prohibited firearms.

The registrar, in effect the RCMP’s Canadian Firearms Centre, would check the validity of the licence to acquire non-restricted guns and also the buyer’s current eligibility to own firearms. The firearms centre would confirm both licence validity and eligibility by issuing a “reference number” to the retailer or an individual, if it was a private sale.

Goodale’s reaction to the association’s concern that the non-restricted licence verification might be entered in the same database platform that handles restricted firearms sparked a backlash from gun owners on Twitter.

The public safety minister’s manager of media and communications, Scott Bardsley, addressed the concern in a statement to iPolitics on Thursday.

“While the design of the database for licence verification (under Bill C-71) is underway, the only personal information it is intended to capture is the licence number of the transferor (retailer) and the licence number of the transferee (buyer),” Bardsley said in an email.

He added that the verification record would also include the reference number, the date the reference number was issued and “a reason if a reference number was not issued.”

“No data on the non-restricted firearm will be collected,” Bardsley said.

“No data from the licence verification system will be accessible to the enforcement community through the Canadian Firearms Registry Online,” he said in the email.

The director of the lobby group that raised the alarm about the plan, Alison de Groot, said Thursday firearm businesses were concerned, following the meeting with Hurl, that verification of licences through the same online platform that serves the restricted registry would require retailers to enter personal information that the bill is intended to exclude from the verification of licences to buy non-restricted rifles and shotguns.

“We were told by the minister’s staff that they current system would be used to process the requests for verification under Bill C-71,” de Groot said in a phone interview Thursday.

“We need to see some language that they won’t be collecting more information than Bill C-71 requires,” de Groot said.

The association has been pressing the government to include it in the drafting of regulations and planning, but has been unsuccessful.

“We’ve been begging them,” said de Groot.

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