When it comes to technologies like facial recognition, which is largely based on machine learning and artificial intelligence-based advances that have happened in the last number of years, there are relationships to quantum technology with respect to machine learning. However, more generally, when it comes to AI, there has been a fairly big investment in Canada over the last 10 years with respect to doubling down on the fact that we have very strong.... Some of the pioneers of that kind of research are here in Canada.
Through investments such as the pan-Canadian artificial intelligence strategy, which was renewed in budget 2021, we're trying to invest in the researchers and in training the people who can implement those kinds of technologies. We're also investing in understanding the societal impacts of these technologies. The flip side of the efficiencies that can be gained through facial recognition is the potential impacts on bias, security and privacy that you need to be very mindful of. Those are things that we're funding on the research side.
With respect to the specific application of those technologies for government, our Treasury Board Secretariat has been trying to develop some guiding principles. These could guide how you do things like use those technologies for autonomous decision-making in a way that respects some of these values that we all share around making sure that people's privacy is protected, and making sure that we try to eliminate bias if we're going to try to use mechanistic kinds of tools to try to identify how to take decisions, and so on.
There is work going on in that space, although it isn't something that my department is.... We are implicated through privacy legislation and other things, but it's largely directed out of our Treasury Board Secretariat.