Public Safety Committee on Feb. 14th, 2012

[Anthony Ashley]

We've had some initial discussions with Public Safety and Corrections Canada about our potential involvement in this activity. We're still awaiting a more formal task. My centre tends to take on tasks that are written down and agreed to. We haven't agreed to any specific activity yet, so we're spending a little bit of our time trying to understand some of the initial aspects of this—waiting to decide on what official task we might get.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

When did you get that directive from Public Safety or Corrections? Was it in the last couple of weeks or months?

[Anthony Ashley]

We made initial contact with some Public Safety folks a number of months ago for a very initial discussion.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

What exactly has the Corrections department or the Public Safety office asked you to do?

[Anthony Ashley]

They haven't asked us to do anything specific yet. We could engage with the end-users or the policy-makers to understand how they think they want to use these devices and characterize the operational model. Then we could say, “If that's the capability you need, you need to have devices that have this type of technical performance”. Then we would go out and see if the devices that are currently available meet that technical performance specification.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

You talked about three different ways surveillance could be done: GPS, radio frequency, and biometrics. Can you tell me about the advantages and disadvantages of the GPS system?

[Anthony Ashley]

A GPS system gives you, in theory, the opportunity to have real-time tracking of individuals, as long as you're in a situation where you get reasonable GPS coverage from the satellite system.

The RF technology is generally used, to the best of my understanding at this time, to determine whether an individual has moved away from a specified location. You can't typically use that to track people, so you would put it in their home or at their place of work.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

You talked about “in theory”. What do you mean by that?

[Anthony Ashley]

I don't want to bore you with technical details, but the theory behind GPS technology is basically that you have the series of orbiting satellites, which transmit signals to a receiver. If you know where the satellites are, and if the satellites all have synchronized time clocks and the signals all arrive at your GPS receiver without being distorted or modified in any form, then your GPS receiver has a computer inside it that uses those signals to determine your location.

The problem is, that's the theory behind it, and all sorts of practical issues get in the way. I'm sure you've all tried to tune in radio stations that are too weak and are fuzzy because the radio station is too far away or your receiver is in a poor position. That's the sort of thing that can happen with a GPS receiver. It's receiving a radio wave, just like a radio receiver.

There are all sorts of other issues. The radio waves have to pass through the atmosphere to get to your GPS receiver, and as they pass through the atmosphere, they become distorted as well. All of these distortions—and there are other ones we could talk about—tend to create ambiguity concerning the location of the receiver. This is where you get into some more technical detail. Depending upon the complexity of your receiver, you can deal with these distortions to a greater or lesser extent.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Let me get this right. What you're saying is that if we were in an underground subway, it wouldn't work?

[Anthony Ashley]

That's correct. Most GPS signals will not penetrate into deep underground areas.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

So if we were in a building the size of this one, with seven or eight floors, you wouldn't know which floor the person is on, most likely.

[Anthony Ashley]

That's likely correct. Now, I must admit that I'm not sure about some of the high-quality military receivers, but certainly for conventional, lower-cost receivers, that would be the case, I believe.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I'm going to go back to the preliminary stage that you talked about. What sorts of settings did the Public Safety or Corrections people talk about—what sorts of people? Is it just for the prisoners, or for other applications?

[Anthony Ashley]

We haven't really discussed that operational requirement at all yet. The only discussions we have really had are around our ability to provide them technical support. I think we're at the point where they believe this is a possibility, and if they agree that we want go ahead with some sort of activity, then we'll get into these other issues.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I want to talk about cost. When you're setting up new technology, once you know the operations, the cost to set this up could be quite a bit of money.

[Anthony Ashley]

Again, we haven't looked at the cost, so I don't really know. The total cost has to take into account all sorts of factors. It's not just the GPS receivers themselves.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

What are those factors?

[Anthony Ashley]

Well, they're issues associated with monitoring the data. Someone has to monitor the data so that the GPS receiver, if you want to call it that, transmits the data back to some sort of monitoring site. But what do you do with it? Someone has to sit there and analyze it and make a decision as to what to do. There has to be a follow-up process of some sort. If you believe someone has transgressed, you have to presumably do something about it.

Those are issues more for the Public Safety and Corrections guys to deal with. From a technical perspective, there are obviously technical things that need to be solved as you go through that operational requirement.

[Jasbir Sandhu, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

What are the technical difficulties with the radio frequency-operated electronic monitoring?

[Anthony Ashley]

I'm just going to say that we haven't really looked into the details, but I would assess, based upon my previous background as an electrical engineer, that there are much fewer difficulties than with the GPS situation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. We're well over seven minutes.

We'll now go to Mr. Jay Aspin, please.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are directed to Mr. Meunier.

Mr. Meunier, do you, in your expert opinion, feel that this technology, if implemented correctly, will keep Canadians safer?

[Pierre Meunier, Portfolio Manager, Surveillance, Intelligence and Interdiction, Defence Research and Defence Canada - Centre for Security Science, Department of National Defence]

It wouldn't be appropriate for me to comment on that. I can answer some of the technical questions with Dr. Ashley, but—

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Sorry, I can't hear you.