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Canadian Regulators Seek Policy Amendments for Facial Recognition


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Applying facial recognition to the image of a young man.

Canadas privacy commissioner wants the countrys lawmakers to revamp privacy laws to address issues related to facial recognition, following an investigation into the use of such technology by Canadas federal police agency.

Credit: Getty Images

Canada's Office of the Privacy Commissioner has cited the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) for breaking federal privacy law by using facial recognition software from Clearview AI.

Regulators said Clearview compiled biometric information without the knowledge or consent of individuals; the company has a database of roughly 3 billion photos harvested from the Internet.

Canadian Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien also requested clarification from Canada's Parliament on the treatment of online images of people's faces, and said police must ensure third-party data providers' information collection practices comply with privacy statutes.

Therrien said Canadian laws should stipulate that the concept of publicly available personal information "does not apply to information where an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy."

From The Wall Street Journal
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