Can an extensive travel history (shortened here to ETH) negatively impact one's processing time? I actually had to report 100 trips to about 35 countries. I want to believe that the more one has traveled the more confidence it should add to your overall risk profile, however this is not the case according to
@legalfalcon, who is somewhat of an expert on these matters. Indeed, I went in search of answers by reaching out to people with AORs of January 2018 and onward to find out if people had faced delays due to ETHs.
In all, I received some 25-30 responses. There was a lot of surprising stuff in there. A NZ national who went to Mexico for a four-day vacation years ago was requested to send in a PCC for it! This resulted in an ADR, and it took him about a month to get the certificate from Mexico.
There were almost a dozen cases of people who had very ETHs and were put into what is called a 'security screening', which is an intensive background check conducted by the CSIS in conjunction with the CBSA, and can take anywhere from six months to a year. There are quite a few Jan through April 2018 AORs that I am touch with that are still waiting for their security screening to end!
Meanwhile, a small number of people who replied told me not to worry...that they had passed their background checks without a perceptible delay despite an ETH.
Of course, nothing about IRCC can be generalized and there is no one rule of thumb to follow when it comes to how they conduct their background checks. It may be that they will go through everything in your travel history with a fine tooth comb or let you get off easy. The fact that neither of us has received any ADRs such as additional PCCs is a good sign, but I don't want to speak too soon. Finally, there is nothing to be gained from worrying; I hope none of us is put into a 'hold pattern' due to an ETH. There are GCMS notes, of course, but also CSIS and CBSA notes that offer much more depth and clarity on one's background check - something which is usually heavily redacted in GCMS notes.
This is a topic of conversation that interests me greatly, and I've actually been discussing it with
@USProgrammer over PM.
Edit: P.S. People have abbreviated security screening to 'SS', which for anyone from Europe will have a completely different connotation.
Yes you are right I am also in the situation of having living in different countries and don’t get me started on the travels .... I’m afraid it will take them forever to go through my application with all the travels...