Toronto could become home to what’s being described as Canada’s first-ever “virtual gated community.”
According to The Guardian, Rosedale residents are considering implementing an AI-powered surveillance system in an effort to curb a rise in local break-ins. Toronto police data shows that while the city’s overall number of break-and-enters has been decreasing, the affluent Rosedale neighbourhood has seen a marked increase as of late.
To address this, members of the community are discussing using Flock, an American camera system that scans licence plates to determine whether they’re safe or suspicious. These images will be cross-referenced with a searchable database of vehicles that have been flagged by law enforcement “hot lists” of stolen cars or wanted suspects. Craig Campbell, a Rosedale resident in the security business, told The Guardian he has the Canadian licensing rights to Flock and has proposed bringing it to his community.
The publication notes that many people in the neighbourhood’s WhatsApp group are supportive of the idea. However, others expressed concerns about AI bias and broader privacy breaches.
This comes amid intense scrutiny into Flock in the U.S. For one, popular YouTuber Benn Jordan posted a video in November outlining how he hacked Flock’s network in under 30 seconds, which doesn’t exactly instil confidence in the company’s security infrastructure. On top of that, Flock cameras have been used to help ICE — an organization that is well-known for its repeated humans rights violations — to detain people. And Amazon-owned Ring even ended a partnership with Flock after backlash to a Super Bowl ad promoted neighbourhood surveillance.
It also remains to be seen what legal challenges Flock could face entering Canada. As The Guardian notes, Canadian privacy laws are stricter than those in the U.S., and so Flock would be subject to Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), which governs how organizations collect, use, or disclose personal information.
“Nothing about the cameras and the technology is any different than any private citizen standing on a corner taking a picture with their iPhone, except in this case it’s only the licence plate being recorded,” claimed Campbell to The Guardian. Of course, even if that were true, there is a big difference between some random person taking a picture on their phone and a camera network by a controversial company that collects data for use by other parties.
It’s unclear if and when Campbell plans to attempt to roll out Flock to Rosedale. In the meantime, at least 60 residents are paying into a shared private security service.
Image credit: Flock
Source: The Guardian
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