Reports of Toronto’s Union Station implementing the use of facial recognition software to better target advertising made media waves a few weeks ago. Here’s what students who may be using the station during this upcoming break should know.
The news broke on the r/Toronto subreddit in early November when a user posted a notice from Cineplex Digital Media (CDM) which explained that their billboards run “anonymous software, used to generate statistics about audience counts, gender and approximate age only.” These billboards are located inside the Union Station Bus Terminal.
On the provided website, CDM says that “facial detection is very different from facial recognition, facial recognition looks for and identifies a particular person, whereas facial detection only looks for the presence of a face.”
CDM advises that the use of this technology is to better target ads by identifying the people that are perceived to be at the station at given times, though CDM states that “none of the advertising will ever be targeted at children.”
Cineplex Inc. sold CDM to Creative Realities — a U.S. based corporation — in October.
The use of facial recognition software by corporations isn’t new to Canada. In 2021, Clearview AI — an American facial recognition software designed for law enforcement — scraped millions of facial photos of Canadians from various platforms, sparking an investigation by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
The Commissioner found that the practice “amounted to continual mass surveillance,” though Clearview AI disputed the findings. However, the company moved out of Canada and ceased its operations, while refusing to follow any of the Commissioner’s recommendations.
In addition, the Commissioner found the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, RCMP, in violation of the privacy act in using Clearview AI’s services. The RCMP originally denied the Commissioners conclusion that it ultimately agreed to implement it’s recommendations to enhance privacy.
A year prior in 2020, Cadillac Fairview — a company that owns several malls in Canada — was found to have “embedded inconspicuous cameras in digital information kiosks at 12 shopping malls to collect customers’ images […] to guess their age and gender.”
An investigation found that five million shoppers had their images sent to a third-party service provider, where they were stored for no apparent purpose. The company withdrew the technology due to public backlash.
In response, the Commissioner noted that they “remain concerned that Cadillac Fairview refused to commit to ensuring express, meaningful consent is obtained from shoppers should it choose to redeploy the technology in the future.”
According to Global News, CDM, in a press release, said “no images or personal data are stored and all processing happens within milliseconds,” in reference to the Union Station Bus Terminal billboards. It has been noted by the Commissioner that facial recognition technology in Canada, outside of Québec, is governed by a patchwork of laws with no specific legislation regulating its use, especially in the field of policing.
While the government has yet to enact new laws reflecting the changing world of technology concerned citizens may file a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.