Information & Ethics Committee on April 28th, 2022

[Dr. Dubi Kanengisser]

Through the chair, I think neither of these will be the correct answer. It's supposed to help law enforcement identify perpetrators and victims, to help them carry out their duties. So whatever duty that you believe that law enforcement has, it is just another tool in their belt to carry out those duties. I don't think the expectation is that actual safety, or a sense of safety, will be impacted directly just by having those tools available.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Kanengisser.

Mr. Stairs, I'll ask you the same question: can you weigh up the pros and cons, from the point of view of personal freedoms?

[Colin Stairs]

I agree that what we're looking at is mostly an after-the-fact investigative tool, and we are not looking at surveillance or upstream of event types of facial recognition, which would be very intrusive. And in that state, I don't think we're having a significant impact as it stands on rights because we are following similar processes at similar scales to existing processes.

I think that when the public thinks of facial recognition, they think of TV shows and movies where every camera has facial recognition applied to it. What we are doing is taking crime scene photos gathered from cameras that would be recording the street regardless, taking a still from that and comparing it to the mug shot database, which is very similar to witnesses giving testimony. This is not a significant change.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Stairs.

I'll get back to Mr. Kanengisser.

What uses of facial recognition technology would you call unreasonable?

[Dr. Dubi Kanengisser]

Anything that falls under mass surveillance would definitely be unreasonable. Tracking people en masse indiscriminately would be considered unacceptable to me and to the board based on their decisions, as well as any use of technology that can be shown to be inaccurate, leading to significant misidentification and all the harm that that could lead to. A person getting arrested because they were misidentified by a software and that wasn't confirmed by a human would be unacceptable.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I'm only going to take 10 seconds to ask you whether or not the people who participated in the public consultation had confidence in the process.

[Dr. Dubi Kanengisser]

Some did, some didn't. I'm afraid that's the way these things go. Conversations that I've had with—

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I'm going to have to leave the answer at that.

It is time now for Mr. Green, for six minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Boudreau, I heard you state in earlier testimony under questions from Mr. Williams that you didn't agree with the Privacy Commissioner's results and findings, and in fact, if I believe I understood correctly, there was no disciplinary process through which those responsible for this breach were held to account. Is that correct?

[Paul Boudreau]

That is correct, and the RCMP appreciates the—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, Under the RCMP Act, if an officer were to unlawfully access CPIC, for instance, to look at information relating to people unrelated to a crime, what would happen under the RCMP Act in terms of disciplinary processes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Before we get an answer to that question, I'm obliged to interrupt at this point and ensure that I have unanimous consent.

I'd like to hopefully finish Mr. Green's round, and I have a couple of very quick items that could probably be dispatched within a minute or two.

If there are no further objections, I will go to the answer to Mr. Green's question.

Hearing none, we'll continue to finish Mr. Green's round and a couple of other quick items.

Go ahead for the answer.

[Paul Boudreau]

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—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Why was this process not undertaken when the person was found to have unlawfully accessed these without knowledge of superiors?

[Paul Boudreau]

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

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, the OPC report also states that the RCMP first erroneously told the Office of the Privacy Commissioner that it was not using Clearview AI. Why did the RCMP deny the use of the technology to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner?

[Paul Boudreau]

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—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

At the highest level of accountability, who would have allowed for this and signed off on this use, whether in a procurement process or in free trials? Who ultimately signed off on the use of this technology? It sounds like the superior officers were unaware of this, so who ultimately is responsible?

[Paul Boudreau]

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—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair—

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Let him answer, because he's—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm not actually interested in what they're doing now. I'm interested in what happened to get us to this point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I just want to make sure he has enough time to answer the question. It was a 25-second question. I was just letting him answer.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Let me ask a more specific question, Mr. Chair.

In earlier testimony from Mr. Williams and others, I heard that FRT was not used per se. Why per se? I also heard that no new or advanced AI technologies were being used.

My question is, through you to Mr. Boudreau, are any forms of FRT, either old, or not considered new and advanced AI, being used currently by the RCMP?

[Paul Boudreau]

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.