Editor:
RE: Privacy watchdog says RCMP's use of facial-recognition tool broke law
On June 12 Richmond Mayor Brodie wrote to the Vancouver Sun asserting that his city is proposing high resolution facial images be used to identify people in public committing crimes. He says this will help ensure the safety of residents. Mayor Brodie’s letter was in response to the May 28 Vancouver Suns’ Daphne Bramham’s Opinion article on monitoring and spying.
Coincidently, as noted on the June 10 Delta Optimist online National News section, the federal privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien stated that the RCMP broke the law by using facial images obtained from private company Clearview AI. The images collected by Clearview AI were scraped from internet websites without users’ consent.
Both of these events raise the issue of users’ consent, which is not given in either case. A person’s image is part of their personal information just like their health records and identity. With facial recognition technology a person could be identified simply by walking down the street. That sounds like surveillance to me.
This facial recognition technology and its use or misuse is of great importance to Deltans and indeed, all Canadians. Will there be a legal challenge against the City of Richmond for its use of proposed high resolution images? Will the City of Delta want to pursue high resolution images as well? Are we as a society moving away from privacy toward more surveillance and where is the best balance?
Keith Munro
