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in si de ha lto n. co m O ak vi lle B ea ve r | T hu rs da y, M ar ch 5, 20 20 | 14 ANewCemetery forHaltonRegion A new cemetery has opened to serve members of the Catholic community in Halton. Located at the corner of Bronte Road and Lower Base Line, Holy Family Cemetery covers 100 acres - with space for 5,000 graves, 200 cremation lots and niche columbarium space in the first phase of development. Th e Roman Ca t ho l i c E p i s c op a l Co r po r a t i o n o f t h e D i o c e s e o f H am i l t o n i n On t a r i oTh e Roman Ca t ho l i c E p i s c op a l Co r po r a t i o n o f t h e D i o c e s e o f H am i l t o n i n On t a r i o www.thecatholiccemeteries.ca For more information and to view a site plan, call 1-800-661-5985. Halton police Chief Ste- phen Tanner is making no apologies for the service briefly using a controver- sial facial recognition soft- ware, asking why wouldn't the service look at it to see if it had potential? During a Thursday, Feb. 27, meeting of the Halton Police Service Board, Tan- ner spoke about a pilot pro- ject Halton police engaged in that involved the U.S.- based Clearview AI Inves- tigative tool. He said late last year in- vestigators with the Halton police Internet Child Ex- ploitation Unit attended a personal development con- ference and watched a Clearview AI presentation about facial recognition software. This tool has the ability to take a face, for example the face of a suspect caught on a surveillance camera, and check it against data- bases of mug shots as well as pictures posted across the internet. Clearview AI emphasiz- es on its website that it searches the open web to make these matches. They say they do not and cannot search any pri- vate or protected informa- tion such as private social media accounts. "A number of our people said, 'Let's have a look at it and see if it works,'" said Tanner. "We had two or three peo- ple in our Child Exploita- tion Unit that had this ... We have not matched anybody from afrom af crime scene be- cause that's not the way we were using it. So, it is not an issue for us going for- ward in the courts." Tanner said he knew about the use of the facial recognition tool. He noted the pilot pro- ject has since ended. Following a rise in pri- vacy concerns and media attention over the use of the software, Ontario's In- formation and Privacy Commissioner Brian Beamish issued a state- ment noting the use of this technology is of great con- cern. "There are vital privacy issues at stake with the use of any facial recognition technology," he said. "We question whether there are any circumstanc- es where it would be ac- ceptable to use Clearview AI." Tanner said Halton po- lice will not use Clearview AI's tool again or any other facial recognition technol- ogy on open source (public) data and images until such time as the privacy com- missioner or the Attorney General of Ontario ap- prove it. Tanner acknowledged there are questions sur- rounding the use of Clear- view AI that need to be re- solved, such as how it can be proven that only Clear- view accessed public imag- es. He said the answer may be for the police service to develop its own technology so they know it only searches certain images and not others. That said, Tanner made no apologies for the Clear- view AI pilot project. He said looking into new tech- nologies that may help offi- cers solve crimes and help victims is part of the job. "The public would ex- pect us to do that," he said. "A large percentage of the public would hope that we would solve a sexual as- sault, an armed robbery, the beating of someone in a park ... They expect us to le- verage technology to do that. I think I would be ashamed of us if we didn't." The chief noted Halton police is working with oth- er police services to intro- duce facial recognition technology to a national mug shot database so sus- pect images can be effi- ciently and quickly checked against those mug shots for a match. He said for the last two or three years, Toronto po- lice have been successful in taking suspect photos from crime scenes and using fa- cial recognition technolo- gy to check for matches in their internal database of mug shots. Tanner said Halton po- lice have taken suspect im- ages to Toronto police and asked them to use this tech- nology to check their data- base for a match. The chief pointed out the RCMP Internet Child Exploitation Unit in Otta- wa is continuing to use Clearview AI in an effort to identify the victims of child pornography. "That is something that even the strongest civil lib- ertarian would probably agree with," said Tanner. "They have identified two or three victims from child pornography investi- gations through facial rec- ognition." POLICE CHIEF DISCUSSES USE OF FACIAL RECOGNITION SOFTWARE DAVID LEA dlea@metroland.com NEWS SOFTWARE USED BY INTERNET CHILD EXPLOITATION UNIT IN PILOT PROJECT Stephen Tanner