Public Safety Committee on Feb. 14th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good afternoon, everyone.

This is meeting number 24 of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Tuesday, February 14, 2012.

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.

Today we are continuing our study on the use of electronic monitoring in both a corrections and a conditional release setting, as well as an immigration enforcement setting, with a view to determining effectiveness, cost efficiency, and implementation readiness.

In our first hour we will hear from the Department of National Defence. Appearing before us, as you see here today, is Mr. Anthony Ashley, director general at the Centre for Security Science, Defence Research and Development Canada. We also have Mr. Pierre Meunier, portfolio manager, surveillance, intelligence, and interdiction, Centre for Security Science, Defence Research and Development Canada.

Welcome to our committee.

I understand we have an opening statement from Mr. Ashley. We look forward to those comments, and then we will go into a round of questioning.

Mr. Ashley.

[Anthony Ashley, Director General, Defence Research and Development Canada - Centre for Security Science, Department of National Defence]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee.

My name, as you heard already, is Anthony Ashley. I am the director general of the Defence Research and Development Canada Centre for Security Science, and I have been in that position since the centre was established in 2006. As you already know, I am here with Mr. Meunier, who is my portfolio manager for surveillance, intelligence, and interdiction, which is one of the portfolios we manage through the centre.

This afternoon I would like to provide you with a brief overview of who we are and what we do, our relationship with Public Safety Canada, and the expertise we believe we can bring to bear to support the exploration of an electronic monitoring program.

The Centre for Security Science was established in 2006 through a memorandum of understanding between the Department of National Defence and Public Safety Canada. It is managed by Defence Research and Development Canada, or DRDC, as we call ourselves. DRDC is a special operating agency that's actually within the Department of National Defence, and its primary task in that context is to provide S and T support to the department and to the Canadian Forces.

The mission of the Centre for Security Science is to pull requirements and priorities from the policy and operational communities and to task the science and technology community in government, industry, academia—and also our international partners, I might add—to develop solutions that address these priorities. So we play sort of a spanning role between the operational policy communities and the real technologists and engineers out there in the community.

Among my centre staff are scientists and engineers with a wide range of relevant experience, but also those who possess expertise in areas such as capability-based planning, risk assessment, operational research, knowledge management, project management, community building, and application of scientific methodologies. We therefore believe we are well positioned to provide trusted advice to our client base.

Over the years the Centre for Security Science has built a network of experts it can draw upon to serve the needs of the public safety and security community. So, as I mentioned, ours is very much a spanning activity.

Through hundreds of projects and activities, the centre and its partners have improved Canada's capabilities, ensuring that responders, planners, and policy- and decision-makers have access to the scientific and technical knowledge, tools, processes, and advice they need to protect Canada's interests.

Last Thursday you heard testimony emphasizing the need for scientifically validated evidence to support decision-making on electronic monitoring. This is where the capabilities of the Centre for Security Science could be brought to bear to provide advice on technical requirements that would need to be met in order to meet operational requirements as defined by Correctional Service of Canada or others. I emphasize there the difference between technical requirements and operational requirements.

In relation to electronic monitoring, Defence Research and Development Canada has experts in navigation systems who intimately understand GPS technology, including such issues as jamming and operation in challenged environments. We can also draw upon expertise in data management and geographic information system-based display technology, as well as other expertise from within the Department of National Defence, for testing of these types of devices.

We also have access to a broad range of experts in other government departments, industry, and academia through our networks and communities of practice.

In conclusion, the Centre for Security Science can bring to the table the technical expertise necessary to support Public Safety Canada and Correctional Service Canada decisions surrounding the technical requirements and performance factors of electronic monitoring devices.

That is my opening statement.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ashley.

We'll move into the first round of questioning, starting with Ms. Young.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Ashley, for coming in and giving us that really broad overview. The work that you and your department do is very impressive.

Could you just tell us overall, given that you're an expert in the technical aspects, what types of electronic monitoring are available?

[Anthony Ashley]

I have to say that our involvement in this activity with Public Safety Canada and Corrections Canada is really very much at the beginning stages. We've had a number of meetings to outline what we might be able to bring to the table, so we're actually just getting started looking at these sorts of things.

There is, obviously, an initial range of devices that one would consider looking at. GPS-enabled devices, devices that just use radio frequency information, and biometric devices, for example, can all play a role. The real issue, as I said in my opening statement, is for us to get a better understanding of the operational requirements, so that we can then transfer those into technical requirements and assess those technical requirements against the devices that are currently available.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

What I'm hearing you say is that you want to take a look at the business case and scope out what the business requirements are prior to making a technical recommendation.

[Anthony Ashley]

We can only make a technical recommendation against operational requirements. It's not proper just to examine the technology, itself. There is a range of issues, such as what is the interrogation interval for the device. Do you need to know where the individuals are every two hours, every three hours, or every five minutes? Where does the device have to work? What does it have to be able to withstand in terms of punishment or environmental conditions? We need to clearly understand that first.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Right. I understand.

In coming today you are at a very preliminary stage. You haven't had a chance to review the business requirements, and therefore you are not in a position to recommend one or the other.

[Anthony Ashley]

That's absolutely correct. We're very much at the beginning stages.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

May I ask you then if, in the beginning stages, you've had an opportunity to at least take a look internationally at what kinds of electronic surveillance mechanisms are being used in other countries.

[Anthony Ashley]

We do have a rough understanding of some of the technologies that are available, and they do, I think I've already mentioned, fall into the GPS-enabled devices or base station systems that use RF—radio frequency—monitoring. People don't talk a lot about biometric systems, but you can use biometric systems in certain circumstances, depending upon, again, the operational requirement.

There are a number of companies that we've had a very quick look at, but we've really not done any evaluation of their technologies yet, because again, we don't understand the operational requirement at this stage.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Setting the operational requirements aside at this point, because we obviously don't have that, could you very quickly give us a sense of what these three systems that you've already mentioned are—the GPS, the radio, and the biometric?

[Anthony Ashley]

The GPS systems use an embedded GPS capability that the person wears, and that GPS capability produces a system log of where that person has been based on a connection with the GPS satellite system. That information is either downloaded in real time using something like cellphone technology through a monitoring site, or it could be downloaded at the end of the day to show where the person had been during the day. Those are the basic core principles of a GPS-type system.

The radio frequency systems tend to be based upon a system technology where you only want to know whether the person is within a certain distance from a particular base station. If the person's wearing a small bracelet and they go more than 100 metres, or 100 feet—whatever the range is—away from the station, an alarm is set off.

For the biometric base systems, which people don't tend to talk about, you're looking at a situation where you simply want to know whether the person came home that night. You could have a biometric scan of some sort—a retinal scan, a thumbprint, or something like that—to give you the confidence that the person, at one point during the day, actually was at that site.

Again, all these things depend upon the operational requirement.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Chair, how much more time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have two and a half minutes.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Okay, great.

Based on your understanding of these three different technologies, which ones are currently being used in Canada for electronic surveillance?

[Anthony Ashley]

I can't really answer that question. To be honest with you, we haven't done the survey. The deployment of these devices and their use on a daily basis is not part of our responsibilities. I think Corrections Canada is probably the best route to answer that question.

I would be surprised if biometrics was being used. I believe some of the provinces are using some of the other technologies, but our knowledge on that is very limited at this point in time.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

As a follow-up to that question, have you been in a situation where you've been able to study any of these technologies?

[Anthony Ashley]

We've looked at a few of the product catalogues, but that's about it. Part of a comprehensive program to look for these devices would be to translate the operational requirement into a technical requirement and then look at the devices available that meet that technical requirement in principle and according to the manufacturer. Then they would have to be evaluated in a wide range of circumstances, because the technical requirements—or the catalogues, if you will—provided by the manufacturers tend to tell you the best performance in the best-case situation. They don't really allow you to truly understand the limits of the devices. So you'd have to go out, buy some of these, and test them.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Chair, how much more time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have under a minute.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

Since you're at a very preliminary stage on the operational side, can you tell us about the costing of these three technologies?

[Anthony Ashley]

Based upon some of the reading I've done, which again is very preliminary, the GPS-enabled devices are likely to be the more expensive. One of the problems with GPS systems is they can range from very simple to extremely complex. GPS isn't just GPS; it's a hugely complex field. You have to try to understand what actual GPS technology is being used by the individual manufacturers, because the overall performance can vary markedly, depending on what their implementation looks like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll now move to the opposition. Mr. Sandhu.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you for being here.

You talked about a preliminary stage. What do you mean by that?