Media Advisory

Privacy Commissioner of Canada to appear before committee examining facial recognition technology

Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien will appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics (ETHI) to participate in its study into the use and impact of facial recognition technology.

Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario Patricia Kosseim and Diane Poitras, president of the Commission d'accès à l'information du Québec will also appear before the committee.

Details

Date: Monday, May 2, 2022

Time: 11:00 a.m. ET

To view: The appearance will be streamed online on ParlVU.

At the same time as the appearance, the heads of all of Canada’s privacy protection authorities will publish a joint statement calling on parliamentarians to modify laws on the use of facial recognition. The authorities will also publish final joint guidance for police agencies on the use of facial recognition in the context of current laws, which are not sufficiently protective. The publication of these documents follows a public consultation launched in June 2021.

The consultation followed an investigation into Clearview AI that found the private sector platform was involved in mass surveillance. A separate investigation found the RCMP’s use of Clearview to be unlawful, since it relied on the illegal collection and use of facial images.

Contact information for interview requests:

Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
communications@priv.gc.ca