Toronto police used Clearview AI facial recognition software in 84 investigations

Toronto police used Clearview AI facial recognition software to try to identify suspects, victims and witnesses in 84 criminal investigations in the three and a half months officers utilized the controversial technology before their police chief found out and ordered them to stop.

The revelations are contained in an internal police document recently obtained by CBC News through an appeal of an access to information request.

Between October 2019 and early February 2020, officers uploaded more than 2,800 photos to the U.S. company's software to look for a match among the three billion images Clearview AI extracted from public websites, such as Facebook and Instagram, to build its database.

Toronto police first admitted that some of its officers used Clearview AI in mid-February 2020, one month after the service denied using it. But until now, no details around how — and to what extent — officers used the facial recognition software have been released.

The internal report shows how detectives from multiple units started to use a free trial of Clearview AI to advance criminal investigations without consulting anyone other than the company itself and internal supervisors about the legality and accuracy of the technology.

"When you're enforcing the law, your first obligation is to comply with it," said Brenda McPhail, director of the privacy, technology and surveillance program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA). "It really doesn't seem like that was top of mind as the concept of this tool, as the examples of this tool, as the conversations about this tool circulated through the force."

According to the report, detectives using the technology only met with Crown attorneys about Clearview AI after a New York Times investigation in January 2020 revealed details of how the company compiled its database and its use by more than 600 law enforcement agencies in Canada, the United States and elsewhere. Soon after, then-Toronto police chief Mark Saunders was informed that his officers were using the software and ordered them to stop on Feb. 5.

Since then, four Canadian privacy commissioners have determined that Clearview AI conducted mass surveillance and broke Canadian privacy laws by collecting photos of Canadians without their knowledge or consent.

Given those findings, the co-chair of the Criminal Lawyers' Association's criminal law and technology committee says the police service's lack of due diligence before using Clearview AI could put cases where it was used at risk.

"If police violated the law as part of their investigations, this could make those investigations vulnerable to charter challenges," said Eric Neubauer, a Toronto lawyer.

"We have the right in Canada to be free from unreasonable search and seizure — one could conceivably see an argument being brought in court that this was a fairly profound violation of that right."

So far, Neubauer and McPhail say they haven't seen a Canadian example of the software's use face legal scrutiny in court. That said, there were already two Toronto cases before the courts based at least in part on evidence that officers generated through the use of Clearview AI in March 2020, according to the report.

Of the 84 criminal investigations where searches were completed, the report says that 25 were advanced through Clearview AI, with investigators identifying or confirming the whereabouts of four suspects, 12 victims and two witnesses.

In a statement, Toronto police spokesperson Connie Osborne told CBC News that the service has no plans to use Clearview AI again.