Canadian police expand use of facial recognition with new Idemia contract

Canada’s Halton Police has handed out a $1.18 million (US$803,922) contract to Idemia Public Security for facial recognition technology.

The limited tender contract expands upon the system which has been in use with Peel and York Regional Police since last May.

Halton Police Deputy Chief Jeff Hill said only legally obtained images will be used in the course of an investigation to compare with mugshots stored in their system. Idemia placed second in Mugshot (N=12 million) in NIST’s November 8, 2024 FRTE 1:N ranking of over 150 algorithms.

When matches are identified Hill said they will be used as investigative leads.

“It doesn’t mean if we identify someone, you are automatically guilty,” he said. “There will be a whole background investigative component that [police] will have to do to corroborate that information.”

As Halton Police will use the same system as neighboring Peel and York’s police authorities this results in an expanded pool of available photos as databases can be accessed by each one.

Ideally, Halton Chief Stephen Tanner said, there would be a national database to which the police would have access, something for which he’s been advocating as co-chair of the National Police Services National Advisory Committee.

Hill claimed that the facial recognition system will help Halton Police in its objectives of improving cases solved and reducing the per capita property crime rate. The Deputy Chief said his counterparts in Peel have had “great success” with the system.

Addressing privacy issues, Hill said they will be “very strict” in how the technology will be used and implemented and is cooperating with Peel and York in usage policies. The comparison of digital images is conducted in accordance with Canada’s Identification of Criminals Act, which provides the legal framework for the collection and use of such images, to ensure the protection of individual privacy rights.

Halton Police’s director of information technology Bill Payne said there will be explanations of the facial recognition system to the general public and engagement with their questions.

Halton Police are just one of many law enforcement agencies recently deploying Idemia’s criminal identification technology. Idemia Public Security also supplies Interpol with its Multibiometric Identification System (MBIS), Kansas Bureau of Investigation with its ABIS, and has developed solutions in partnership with France’s Gendarmerie Nationale.

Last year Idemia shared with Biometric Update readers how to enhance the speed and quality of  fingerprint capture for law enforcement in a webinar, which can be accessed here.

Article Topics

biometric identification  |  biometrics  |  Canada  |  facial recognition  |  IDEMIA  |  Idemia Public Security  |  police  |  tender  |  Toronto police