Information & Ethics Committee on April 28th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I will call this meeting to order.

I will start the meeting by apologizing to our witnesses. This is the time of year where this kind of thing happens more frequently, when we are disrupted sometimes by votes in the chamber. This meeting is late to begin because of a rare Thursday vote and looks like it will be cut short because of another vote.

Thank you to our witnesses.

In the interest of time, each witness here has prepared an opening statement that has been received in writing. I would like to receive those statements for the record to be included in the evidence as read, but dispense with the reading of the statements, so that we may have time, perhaps, for a full round of questions from parliamentarians.

[See appendix—Remarks by Paul Boudreau]

[See appendix—Remarks by Colin Stairs]

[See appendix—Remarks by Dubi Kanengisser]

Greg, I see your hand up. Go ahead.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I know this is on me. I had not read the witnesses' statements before the meeting. I actually would appreciate hearing them give their statements, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

You likely won't get to ask any questions if we simply have statements read. Time allocation's been moved in the chamber and we're expecting bells to go probably in about 20 minutes or so.

My proposal is that if I end up with unanimous consent to take us partially into the period of bells, we may get a round of questions in with our witnesses. I want to devote about three or four minutes tops to deal with some important committee business that can't wait.

Greg, go ahead.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Given what you've just told us, sir, are we going to be coming back after bells?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I think we'll be past 5:30 by the time we get back. That would be my guess.

Matthew.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a pretty significant concern that we're going to lose this portion of the study. I know that we had spoken about the potential for additional witnesses. This is an occupational hazard. This has happened from time to time, but I don't want to gloss over this very important element, given the impact it has on our communities.

Through you, Mr. Chair, to our clerks, I'm just wondering whether there are opportunities to invite these witnesses back to have a full discussion? Do we get a mulligan on this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I don't think I'm in a position to answer that question.

We have a lot of moving parts with our committee. We may have time for another meeting where perhaps they could be reinvited. This is going to take up their time as well. We're at quarter after four. My proposal really is to give a member from each party six minutes and see where that takes us. We're likely going to be into bells by the time we do that. I'd like to go ahead and maybe give the floor to our first round and go from there.

Iqra.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Again, we wouldn't really have context for the questions we want to ask if we don't hear opening statements. I would humbly suggest that maybe we get two minutes per witness just to give them an opportunity to highlight what is really important to them and then move on to the questions.

I would really appreciate that, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I'm going to suggest that you have the latitude to use your time however you wish and turn it over for part of that.

There was a briefing note prepared by the analysts as well that maybe you can refer to for questions if that's what you'd like to do. I'm just trying to use our time as effectively for members and ensure that members have an opportunity because otherwise you won't.

With that, I'm going to go ahead.

Mr. Williams, you have six minutes.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for coming today.

I really want to focus testimony today on the facial recognition technology. We've had witnesses in the past who've identified that this technology is wildly inaccurate in identifying non-white individuals.

Can you please just share with me how you're using that technology right now? Are you aware of that inaccuracy in terms of its use and how you're using it?

I'll start with whoever wants to answer that.

[Paul Boudreau, Acting Deputy Commissioner, Specialized Policing Services, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

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—

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

If I may, the witness's camera is not engaged.

[Paul Boudreau]

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. We must make sure that when they're used, they're used properly—especially from my perspective—from a law enforcement perspective.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Right now, are we using human intervention or human review with this technology, as it stands?

[Paul Boudreau]

The RCMP is not using facial recognition technology, as it stands. When we used it as part of our Clearview licences, there was human intervention every time there were results returned by the Clearview application. Yes, we absolutely required human intervention.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

I'll go to Mr. Stairs from the Toronto Police Service. Is the Toronto Police Service using facial recognition technology right now?

[Colin Stairs, Chief Information Officer, Toronto Police Service]

We are. We're using facial recognition to compare probe photos that would have been uncovered in investigation against our Intellibook, which is our mug shot database.

There is a known set of issues around faces in different training sets. We selected the facial recognition technology we use because it is the least biased, but there are biases that are embedded into photography and the photographic systems that are out there. There are biases towards lighter faces, and having more of a detail range in lighter faces than in darker faces.

What we're doing is countering that bias by having a hurdle rate below which we don't consider it a match. If the technology is weaker, it does not disfavour the generally racialized minorities who have darker skin tones. We're also feeding that into a process whereby a match is not considered an identity. The identity has to be corroborated by other methods.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Is that human intervention that you're using? What are the other methods? If you're misidentifying a racial minority, who's verifying that data?

[Colin Stairs]

It would be through the investigative processes.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Is that human?

[Colin Stairs]

Yes, definitely.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

In terms of the data you're collecting from FRT, are you having human intervention every time, or is there sometimes not any?

[Colin Stairs]

There's never no human intervention. There will always be a human intervention.

[Ryan Williams, Conservative, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Almost every witness who's appeared before this committee—academics, lawyers and civil liberties experts—has called for a moratorium on the use of FRT by police forces. Are you aware of the support for moratoriums?

[Colin Stairs]

I am aware, yes.