Public Safety Committee on Feb. 14th, 2012

[Charmaine Borg, NDP, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Do I have any time left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You have another 40 seconds. We can come back.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Yes, we can come back.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll go to Candice.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Meunier, I wanted you, if you could, to talk a little bit more about the biometric aspect. That's new to us. We've heard about GPS and radio frequency, but not the biometric. Regarding concerns of an individual having cumbersome monitoring around their ankles, or something like that, biometric sounds like it wouldn't actually be something that would be on someone's ankle or on the body. Can you just describe it, and could you maybe give us a little bit of hypothetical in terms of any way to use it if people are moving around? I'm just thinking they would have a cellphone, but I guess then we have GPS attached to that as well. Is there any way that you've heard of, or that you could expand on for us?

[Pierre Meunier]

What I've been exposed to is the application for curfew purposes mostly. That's what I've heard about. I know that in Quebec they were looking at a set of options that would help them do electronic monitoring. Biometrics was one of the things—it's not on the market—that they were considering developing. They said that voice recognition has some pros and cons. That could be used; that's an existing system.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Is it in Canada already, or do you mean it exists?

[Pierre Meunier]

I'm saying that the technology is there that allows you to identify somebody through their voice. If I'm not mistaken, I think some jurisdictions might be using that, maybe not in Canada, maybe elsewhere, but these are possibilities. You phone at a certain time and the individual has to answer, and you verify that it is in fact that person at the end of the line, and that line is in this location, so you know.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Obviously, the key points to using that would be the specific location and what the desired outcome is.

[Pierre Meunier]

There may be some applications, some operational requirement for this, and that might be a fairly common way to do it. When people phone up, if they want that extra level of assurance that it is the person who they want to talk to who's at the end of the line, then that can be implemented.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Would I be right in assuming that it would probably be the most expensive of all the three options?

[Pierre Meunier]

I would say not, no.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Not necessarily. If you think in terms of volume, it wouldn't be the most expensive technology. GPS probably would be.

[Pierre Meunier]

According to the business case that the Province of Quebec was building, it would be a cheap option.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I think we all appreciate that you haven't done the research on this, that you're just waiting to hear what the requirements would be and then you can do the research, but I think from what we're hearing, ideally it would be a combination of all three of those, depending on what's happening, if we're talking about someone who should be restricted from going to a certain location.

The radio frequency might be the best thing because then you can see if they've crossed the line or gone to a location they shouldn't. GPS could do that as well, but if it just has to do with someone having a curfew, it could be a combination. I think we're probably all at the same spot right now where we're just trying to investigate some of the best ways to monitor.

[Pierre Meunier]

If I could add to that, because you asked what kinds of technologies there were, there's alcohol monitoring and also drug monitoring.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

How does that work?

[Pierre Meunier]

In the case of alcohol and maybe drugs, they can determine from your sweat whether you've had any, so there are monitors you can place. I don't know how effective they are. I have come across that. If that's one of the conditions of release, for instance, then that's an operational requirement to determine. That would be an option to look at.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

Thank you.

That's all I have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Sandhu.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

You talked about accuracy or different devices that are available. How accurate is the voice recognition system? Is it foolproof, Pierre?

[Pierre Meunier]

I don't have empirical evidence of that. I'd have to look into it. I know it can be quite good in certain circumstances. If you have a very noisy environment, it doesn't work so well. The perfect system is never out there. It is an option that can be looked at. I think noise and background noise are one of the issues in the study I read about from the Province of Quebec. They wanted something that was more foolproof, like finger vein authentication, for instance, a fairly low-cost device you put on your phone that only you can access, that kind of thing. It's an idea at the moment. It's not a product.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

So the voice system is not a foolproof system. It could have problems.

[Pierre Meunier]

Yes, it could.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

You've had a chance to look at some of the devices out there? Can you describe some of them?