Climate Asper Justice Centre Working Group Reflection
Addressing the Use of Facial Recognition Software, Privacy, and Law Enforcement in Canada By Annecy Pang and Rachael Tu
N
ew technologies are continually being developed, introduced, and implemented at a rapid rate. As exciting as these developments can be, there is a worrying lack of regulation in Canada for artificial intelligence technologies. An example is Clearview AI, a facial recognition software that has faced considerable criticism for acquiring its image database by scraping images from public social media profiles. Primarily marketed toward law enforcement agencies, the facial recognition app allows users to upload a picture of a person in order to view every public image of that person, along with links to where those images were published. Clearview AI
31
no longer offers its technology in Canada, but it was tested by dozens of law enforcement agencies across Canada without any type of external oversight, guidelines, or accountability measures. Clearview AI is merely one example of how law enforcement bodies are utilizing increasingly powerful surveillance technologies. This year, the Asper Centre’s Artificial Intelligence & Constitutional Rights student working group sought to explore the impact facial recognition software has on the Constitutional rights of citizens when used by police agencies. Specifically, we looked into how this type of software might affect the privacy rights of individuals under
Asper Centre Outlook 2021
