Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown recently celebrated the installation of a network of powerful police surveillance cameras capable of scooping up personal data from unsuspecting drivers.

Automated licence plate recognition (ALPR) systems at 50 intersections would make the city, in Brown’s words, “the safest place to call home and the most inconvenient place in Canada for organized crime to operate.” And he said they had overwhelming support from participants in a telephone town hall.

But in the U.S., the same AI-driven technology has become a scourge.

The cameras, which capture and analyze images of vehicle licence plates and other characteristics in search of suspended drivers, stolen cars and wanted criminals, have been cut down and vandalized.

[…]

Meant as a public safety balm, they’ve become a source of public backlash against mass surveillance and police privacy violations after revelations that data from the cameras has been used to track and deport undocumented migrants and to illegally monitor the movements of romantic partners.

The American anger hasn’t been matched yet in Canada. Despite Premier Doug Ford’s decision one year ago to ban speed cameras, and the repeated vandalism of Toronto’s Parkside Drive camera, there has been little public debate about the adoption and installation of ALPRs.

[…]

Across Canada, there is limited information about where the cameras are located, how they are being used and what happens to the licence plate data of unsuspecting drivers. In some cases, it is held for 72 hours before being discarded from police computer servers; in other jurisdictions it’s seven days; in others still, it is kept for an entire month.

All of the Toronto Police Service’s cruisers are equipped with ALPR cameras from Axon, a publicly traded company based in Arizona. In addition, five Genetec Cloudrunner cameras have been installed at locations “with a recent history of violent activity,” a Toronto Police spokesperson told the Star.

Full article