We've seen an example of this with Clearview AI. To socialize with friends and family, users innocently use social media with no idea that the information they provide, including their photos, may be collated by a company like Clearview AI, which uses the data for so-called police investigations or, as mentioned, to conduct private investigations of individuals.
You mentioned that the presence of surveillance cameras in some public places also poses a significant risk. I would add, again, that facial recognition can play an important role, particularly in providing security in relation to certain events. The use of facial recognition in public places is a sensitive matter, but I wouldn't say it should be banned altogether.
I strongly encourage you to ask other witnesses to come where they think the problems lie. For my part, I would answer that it is in several places. I don't think you can regulate the whole situation. You have to look at it from a values perspective, and that again brings me back to the question of anchoring legislation in a human rights framework. This is more apparent in the case of the Department of Justice proposals than in the case of Bill C-11. Values are important. Respect for human rights is important. Second, there should be mechanisms to balance commercial interests and human rights, and these mechanisms should be better than those in Bill C-11. We will forward our recommendations to you in this regard.
I would add as a final point that right now our laws in Canada and in many countries—it's not the case everywhere—are said to be technology neutral. That means that the principles apply equally across the board, regardless of the type of technology, including biometrics and facial recognition. There are great advantages to this, and I am not suggesting that this aspect of our laws should be set aside. I think one of the things that you should be looking at is—and your question is very relevant to this—whether there is a need to circumscribe facial recognition activities. This would mean either prohibiting them or subjecting some of them to particularly strict regulation. In this regard, I refer you to a draft regulation on artificial intelligence, published in April by the European Commission. In it, certain prohibited practices are defined, including the use of live facial recognition in certain public places, except for exceptional cases, such as the investigation of major crimes or acts of terrorism.
This is a mixture of general principles about how to balance commercial or governmental interests and human rights on the one hand, and laws of general application on the other. In my view, we need to ask ourselves if there is a case to be made for some specific rules that would either prohibit or strictly regulate this technology; it presents particular risks, because biometric data is permanent.