RCMP lifts veil on use of emerging technologies to fight crime

OTTAWA — The RCMP says it installed tools on digital devices to covertly collect electronic evidence in 32 cases over a recent five-year period.

The criminal offences being investigated in these cases from 2017 to 2022 involved national security, illicit drugs, financial misdeeds and other serious matters.

The national police force disclosed the statistics Tuesday in a report that provides details about various operational technologies, some of them little known to the public.

It includes information on remotely piloted drones, facial recognition software and tools for crunching large amounts of data.

“To keep pace with criminals and to uphold public safety, the RCMP need to continually adapt, innovate, and use new and emerging technologies,” the report says. “At the same time, these technologies need to be used in a responsible and proportionate manner.”

The use of new or potentially invasive technologies by law enforcement requires careful consideration of privacy, ethical, legal and other public interest considerations, the report adds.

The RCMP says it uses so-called on-device investigative tools — once court approval has been obtained — to gather private communications and other information that might otherwise be scrambled by encryption.

The on-device tools can allow police to intercept exchanges, collect and store data, capture computer screenshots and keyboard logging, and activate a device’s microphone and camera features.

“This technique is only used when other investigative means of collecting evidence have proven to be ineffective,” the report says.

The RCMP uses cell-site simulators to mimic cellular towers, prompting all nearby mobile phones and other cellular devices to connect to them.

The Mounties deploy simulators, with judicial authorization, in high-priority investigations relating to national security, serious and organized crime and other Criminal Code offences, the report says. They are also used in urgent circumstances, such as a missing-person or abduction case.

The simulators do not intercept private communications, such as phone calls or text messages, but rather unique alphanumeric identifiers associated with cellular devices. The RCMP must then seek additional court approval to obtain personal subscriber information linked to a mobile device.

From 2017 to 2022, the RCMP deployed cell-site simulator technology in 46 investigations, including 11 in 2022 and 19 in 2021.

Drones equipped with cameras are used for aerial surveillance of major crime scenes and traffic accidents as well as in search and rescue missions and RCMP emergency response team efforts.

The force’s remotely piloted aircraft system program, as it is formally known, includes a fleet of 399 registered flying machines and nearly 300 trained and certified RCMP pilots across Canada.

A privacy impact assessment sets out protocols for handling data collected by the drones.

Drone surveillance that infringes upon a reasonable expectation of privacy would require prior judicial authorization, the report says. “For example, using a remotely piloted aircraft system to capture video of the backyard of a private residence involving a suspect under investigation would require a warrant.”

The RCMP’s drone use has steadily increased in recent years, logging 1,194 operational missions in 2022.

The data collected by drones is assessed to determine whether it has evidentiary or administrative value, or whether it is transitory in nature, the report says.

“The RCMP currently does not use facial recognition technology on any photos or videos captured by remotely piloted aircraft systems.”

The force acknowledges the power of facial recognition, which uses advanced algorithms to process images of people’s faces and analyze biometric features to help verify identities.

“Its inappropriate use could adversely impact privacy and other fundamental rights, such as risks associated with unintended data biases and false identifications,” the report says.

The force says the technology can help identify criminal suspects, missing persons and children at risk of online sexual exploitation.

The RCMP will be using a type of facial recognition technology called face matching, which is a functionality built into certain software applications that are used for processing, sorting and analyzing large volumes of images and videos, the report says.

“The RCMP will use this technology only for processing evidence that has been lawfully obtained in the course of an investigation.”

However, the force anticipates using technologies for facial identification purposes in the future to aid investigators in identifying criminals and victims of crime, the report adds. “These types of operational technologies will only be used under specific circumstances in accordance with RCMP policies and Canadian law.”

The use of artificial intelligence by police raises privacy issues and ethical concerns with respect to potential bias, the report acknowledges.

It stresses that to ensure AI is used legally, ethically and responsibly, it is important to consider that, among other things, any system should be transparent about how it makes decisions.

“It must be easy for humans to understand how a machine learning algorithm arrived at a particular decision, making it easier to identify and correct errors or biases.”

A federal advisory body recently called on Canada’s security agencies to publish detailed descriptions of their current and intended uses of artificial intelligence systems and software applications.

The National Security Transparency Advisory Group also urged the government to look at amending legislation being considered by Parliament to ensure oversight of federal agencies’ use of AI.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press