Some police services in Canada are using facial recognition technology to help solve crimes, while other police forces say human rights and privacy concerns are holding them back from employing the powerful digital tools.
It’s this uneven application of the technology — and the loose rules governing its use — that has legal and AI experts calling on the federal government to set national standards.
“Until there’s a better handle on the risks involved with the use of this technology, there ought to be a moratorium or a range of prohibitions on how and where it can be used,” says Kristen Thomasen, law professor at the University of British Columbia.
As well, the patchwork of regulations on emerging biometric technologies has created situations in which some citizens’ privacy rights are more protected than others.
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“I think the fact that we have different police forces taking different steps raises concerns [about] inequities and how people are treated across the country, but [it] also highlights the continuing importance of some kind of federal action to be taken,” she said.
Last month, York and Peel Police in Ontario said they had begun implementing facial recognition technology provided by multinational French company Idemia.
Kevin Nebrija said the tools “help speed up investigations and to identify suspects sooner,” adding that in terms of privacy, “nothing has changed because security cameras are all around.”
Yet in neighbouring Quebec, Montreal Police Chief Fady Dagher says the force will not adopt such biometric identification tools without a debate on issues ranging from human rights to privacy.
While the federal government doesn’t have jurisdiction over provincial and municipal police forces, it can amend the Criminal Code to incorporate legal requirements for facial recognition software in the same way it updated the law to address voice recording technologies that could be used for surveillance.
In 2022, the federal, provincial and territorial heads of Canada’s privacy commissions called on lawmakers to establish a legal framework for appropriate use of facial recognition technology, including empowering independent oversight bodies, prohibiting mass surveillance and limiting how long images can be retained in databases.
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