Four independently-owned Canadian Tire affiliate stores in British Columbia that installed facial recognition applications for security broke the province’s privacy law, B.C.’s information and privacy commissioner has ruled.
“The investigation showed that the stores did not adequately notify customers and did not obtain consent for the collection of personal information using FRT (facial recognition technology),” Commissioner Michal McEvoy said in a ruling released today.
Even if customers were properly notified their images were being captured, the stores didn’t demonstrate to the commission there was a reasonable reason for collecting the images, he added.
“In my view, retailers would have to go some way to legally justify the collection of biometrics from everyone who enters their premises,” McEvoy said. “As a democratic society, we must proceed with caution, or not at all in many cases, when it comes to FRT.”
The report also calls on the province to close a hole in the Security Services Act, which regulates the sale of closed-circuit TV but not facial recognition and other biometric solutions. These applications are now sold and used in B.C. without parameters, controls, or accountability, the report says. “These technologies are far more intrusive than other security solutions that government currently regulates. Companies and individuals who provide FRT and other biometric solutions should be subject to oversight, just as government controls CCTV and alarm companies.”
In addition, the provincial private-sector privacy law should be amended to force firms to notify the commissioner they intend to provide or implement any technology product or service that involves the collection, use, or disclosure of biometric information. This would follow a similar obligation in Quebec.