Information & Ethics Committee on May 9th, 2022

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I must admit right away that I have a bias. I am not in favour of the use of facial recognition technology, but I was open-minded enough to listen to the evidence. It shocks me that my colleagues' questions, which are quite simple, are not being answered.

Mr. Sage, can you explain to me why you cannot answer these questions directly?

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

The reason I cannot provide a name is that the individual is not an employee of the RCMP anymore. I do not know if that name can be released. If I was told I could, I would gladly produce the name.

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

In that case, can you name the exact position this person held?

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

My predecessor had the same role that I have, which is director general of sensitive and specialized investigative services.

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

Without disclosing the person's name, can you tell us if they were very experienced? Did they have a long tenure before they retired?

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

Certainly that individual did have experience in that position, but I do not know for how long.

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

I have some more questions for you. These are questions I wanted to address at the beginning.

According to the testimony of Mr. Stairs of the Toronto Police Service, that service has adopted a policy on the use of facial recognition technology.

Will the RCMP follow suit?

[Roch Séguin]

I can take that one.

Yes, definitely, and that's through our national technology onboarding program, whereby every technology will be assessed from all those facets that were named previously, from a privacy, ethics, bias and legal perspective, and before they're used in an operation or investigation.

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

When will this policy be made public?

[Roch Séguin]

We will have a policy in place by the end of June.

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

Will this policy apply to all RCMP officers?

According to Mr. Sage's testimony, prior to the exposure of the Clearview AI scandal, any officer could have signed a contract or done business in any way with this type of company.

Will your policy apply to everyone?

[Roch Séguin]

Yes, it will. That's the main reason we've decided to implement a centralized process that will apply to all RCMP nationally.

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

Will it also apply to all the people and organizations they deal with?

[Roch Séguin]

Yes, exactly.

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

I would like to quickly ask Mr. Sage or any representative another question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

You're just about out of time, Greg.

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

In your last appearance before this committee, you said that the RCMP did not use these technologies. However, it was revealed that some of its partners were using them.

At this time, can you confirm that none of your partners are using these services?

I would like to have a crystal clear and very brief answer.

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

I'm sorry. I was on mute. This is the first time I've been at this committee meeting, so I have not provided evidence in the past.

All the partners we would work with would be expected to follow our policy if we're going to use facial recognition technology.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

We're way, way over time on your round, Mr. Fergus. We'll have to go now to Monsieur Garon.

Mr. Garon, you have two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Sage, do you or do you not share the Privacy Commissioner's opinion that the RCMP's use of Clearview AI technology represented mass surveillance and a clear violation of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act?

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

We do not use mass surveillance.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

If you do not share the opinion of the Privacy Commissioner, why do you answer the questions of my colleague Mr. Bezan by saying that

we have to develop “new ways forward”?

You say we need to work with the commissioner and think of new ways of doing things.

How is it that you don't acknowledge the wrong that is being attributed to you and yet you tell us that you need to change your ways completely?

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

There are a couple of questions there.

I would recommend we would not use it for mass surveillance, and that's why we do not use it for mass surveillance.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

At what point does it become surveillance, Mr. Sage? What is the tipping point?

[C/Supt Gordon Sage]

We only use facial recognition on victims of this horrendous crime. We do not use it on suspects. Every time we've used it in the child exploitation world, it was to identify victims, not suspects.