Ottawa Police moving forward with AI facial recognition system
The police service gained board approval June 22 to begin groundwork on joining a facial-recognition network already used by forces in York, Peel, and Halton regions.
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The Ottawa Police Service gained approval to move forward with Phase 1 of a facial recognition program, clearing the path to join a database used by police forces in York, Peel, and Halton regions.
On June 22, the Ottawa Police Service Board approved the motion. Phase 1 focuses on "implementation readiness" — analyzing safeguards, equity considerations, completing a privacy impact assessment, and developing formal policy on when and how the technology can be used.
The network compares faces from digital images or video frames against existing databases. The OPS says it will use only "legally obtained booking images" and exclude "open-source or publicly scraped images."
Legal experts raise concerns. Gideon Christian, the University Research Chair of AI and Law at the University of Calgary, notes the technology turns body cameras — designed to watch police — into tools police use to watch the public. He also warned about the risks of a separate tool the OPS is deploying: an AI-assisted report drafting system called Draft One, which generates initial narratives from body-worn camera footage. "Large language models" have a tendency to fabricate information that looks plausible, a problem called "hallucination." While the OPS says officers must review and approve any generated content before use, Christian said that verification is unlikely to happen consistently in practice.
The OPS is expanding its body-worn camera program to more officers under a $27.2-million contract with Axon, an American law enforcement technology company, running until 2031. Beyond Draft One, the OPS will use an AI auto-translation feature supporting real-time translation of more than 50 languages.
