Information & Ethics committee  As mentioned earlier, I think facial recognition technology is very large, and I think we need to look at it as new technology. We've been using facial recognition within the organization for a very long time. When it comes to the use of facial recognition technology such as Clearview, we are not using that type of technology.

Information & Ethics committee  I am not aware of any other types that would fit the same bill as facial recognition technology. We also shared this information with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner after confirming its use within the organization.

Information & Ethics committee  No, it is not.

Information & Ethics committee  That is correct, and the RCMP appreciates the—

Information & Ethics committee  If the RCMP breaches a code of conduct in which having access to information is used improperly, we would go through the conduct process, which may or may not—

Information & Ethics committee  Again, the RCMP is in disagreement with the Privacy Commissioner in regard to its findings, in particular with section 4 of the Privacy Act.

Information & Ethics committee  At the beginning, when we initially responded to media inquiries, to the Privacy Commissioner, it was not commonly known across the large organization of the RCMP that a limited number of programs and services had begun to use Clearview AI. When it did come to our attention, the RCMP did a fulsome survey to discover how this technology was used across the organization, at which point we instilled processes and procedures on the use—

Information & Ethics committee  The RCMP constantly looks at new and emerging technologies. It's part of our processes for which the divisions—we have a very large organization—look at and evaluate new technologies. What we've done to capture these activities is that we've created a new process called the national technology—

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. Project Arachnid actually runs out of the C3P program, not out of the RCMP. They do use facial recognition technology. We do work with partners such as C3P with regard to child exploitation, but that is not an RCMP-led activity.

Information & Ethics committee  There may be. I am not aware of other technologies out there. The one with Project Arachnid is significant because of its profile dealing with child sexual exploitation, and we have a strong working relationship with C3P. Outside of that, I am not aware of other technologies being used by the organization.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, that can be achieved.

Information & Ethics committee  No. If we look at the results of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner and what the commissioner stated, we do not agree with the full findings of the Privacy Commissioner. However, we do fully support all of the guidance that's been provided and recommendations to the organization.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. If you look at the technologies such as Clearview AI, you see that the RCMP is not using any new or advanced facial recognition technologies. The RCMP inherently has used facial recognition as part of our processes in the past. We can look at mug shots and those types of activities, but facial recognition technology, per se, we are not....

Information & Ethics committee  When it comes to technology such as facial recognition, we recognize that there are gaps in the technology. There are biases that are inherent to those types of technologies. What we're doing, from an RCMP perspective, is when we look at these new technologies, whether they be facial recognition or other types of technologies, we're looking at processes to include human intervention to assess any of these new technologies—

Information & Ethics committee  I apologize for that. Whenever you look at these types of technologies, you have to look at them through the lens of a legal, privacy, gender-based analysis and bias perspective. As I mentioned, you have to have that human intervention as well. There are gaps in these technologies that we must assess.