Privacy watchdogs call for legal framework governing facial recognition

Along with counterparts from the provinces, the federal privacy watchdog Monday released a set of recommendations for the use and deployment of facial recognition technology (FRT) by law enforcement agencies going forward. Released in conjunction with an appearance before the House of Commons Ethics committee, which is holding hearings into the use of the technology, the three privacy commissioners called for a new legal framework that includes four distinct principles: a clear and explicit definition of the purposes for which police use of facial recognition would be authorized, and a list of prohibited uses; strict necessity and proportionality requirements; independent oversight; and privacy rights and protections. “Like all technologies, facial recognition technology can, if used responsibly, offer significant benefits to society. However, it can also be extremely intrusive, enable widespread surveillance, provide biased results and erode human rights, including the right to participate freely, without surveillance, in democratic life,” Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien said in the release. When it comes to a framework that defines when police can and can not use facial recognition technology, the commissioners' statement said that "without such clarity, there is a risk that varying interpretations of police authority to use FR may emerge, which can lead to inconsistency in expectations and application of the law." While the privacy commissioners acknowledged that they believe there are some circumstances in which the use of the technology is acceptable, they wrote in the joint statement that there should be proportionality considerations written into the legal framework. "Since it is not realistic for the law to anticipate and address all circumstances, it is important that, in addition to limitations on authorized purposes, the law also require police use of FR to be both necessary and proportionate for any given deployment of the technology," the statement read. The statement also called for "an independent, external public body with the necessary powers to proactively and meaningfully oversee police use of FR," alongside the authority to carry out compliance and enforcement functions with order making powers. The commissioners also wrote that the legal framework governing the use of FRT data should restrict the storage of the data in a manner similar to restrictions placed on the use of DNA information. "The law should also include restrictions on the circumstances in which an individual’s image may be entered into a comparison database – for example, only upon conviction of certain offenses, or when specific threat criteria are met," the proposed framework read. The proposed framework is one outcome of consultation launched in May 2021 in the wake of the revelation that the RCMP and the Toronto Police Service had been using facial recognition from Clearview AI that scraped billions of images off of publicly available social media posts. After a pair of Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) investigations into the company and the RCMP, the OPC found that the RCMP and Clearview had engaged in "illegal mass surveillance." In 2020, some 31 civil society organizations called for a ban on law enforcement use of the technology, after the NDP called for a moratorium earlier in the year. In a Monday appearance at the Ethics committee, Therrien said that while his agency has been working with the RCMP to implement his office's recommendations, he thought it unlikely that the RCMP would fail to meet the 12-month timeframe set out by the OPC. "While the RCMP disagreed with our conclusion at law that the RCMP itself was breaching the public sector law by relying on Clearview, they did cooperate significantly with us on recognizing that they should have a better verification system when they use new technologies, be it facial recognition or other technologies," Therrien told MPs. "I don't think that they will be able to implement all of these recommendations within a year, but we're making good progress." — Reporting by Michael Lee-Murphy at mleemurphy@thewirereport.ca and editing by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

Privacy watchdogs call for legal framework governing facial recognition

News | May 2, 2022

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Privacy watchdogs call for legal framework governing facial recognition

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