Montreal police are quietly growing their network of AI-powered tools to track vehicles and people across the city, raising questions about public transparency and privacy rights.
A high-powered camera able to scan and identify vehicles was spotted earlier this week by a Radio-Canada reporter, on a lamp post along Henri-Bourassa Boulevard in Montreal’s Rivière-des-Prairies neighbourhood.
It was quickly taken down on Wednesday, after Radio-Canada published an article about the camera.
The device used was a Cloudrunner CR-H2, manufactured by Montreal-based company Genetec, the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) later confirmed.
Similar to the controversial Flock Safety cameras widely used in the United States, the system does more than scan licence plates.
It also captures and stores specific vehicle characteristics, including colour, make and model, according to the company’s website.
While Flock cameras in the U.S. share data in a central database accessible to multiple police forces, Genetec’s system differs in that the collected information is managed by its specific operator.
SPVM spokesperson Marc-Antoine Bélanger told CBC News that access to the captured images is used exclusively for the investigators in charge of the targeted work.
Bélanger said in an email that the camera was removed to “preserve our ongoing investigative strategies.”
But privacy advocates say there has been a lack of transparency in rolling out this new technology.
Montreal police use artificial intelligence software to assist with their investigations, but one of their internal privacy impact assessments acknowledges that this technology raises concerns regarding civil liberties.
Dominique Peschard, a spokesperson for the Ligue des droits et libertés, a Quebec human rights group, said police need to keep the public informed about the kind of technology they are using — and can do so without compromising their work.
“We’re not asking what they are doing in detail, but what are the procedures?” Peschard said in an interview.
“Investigative techniques are getting more and more invasive with technology. You need more and more oversight to make sure it doesn’t go overboard and infringe on our Charter rights.”
Beyond licence plates
The use of the Cloudrunner cameras is part of a broader push by the SPVM into AI-driven technology.
The SPVM confirmed it is using iMotion ROC AI software, developed by Rank One Computing.
SPVM spokesperson Anik de Repentigny told CBC News the software is being used to help investigators sift through massive amounts of video, but denied that the force is using the software’s facial recognition or biometric capabilities.
“This software will not be used to verify the identity of individuals in video images, but rather to identify the video passages where the targeted known element appears,” de Repentigny said in an email to CBC earlier this year.
De Repentigny added that the system operates on a closed network offline from external databases.
The software analyzes footage from the SPVM’s 46 marked urban security cameras, as well as private residential and commercial surveillance video manually collected by officers with citizen consent or a warrant.
An internal privacy impact assessment by the SPVM, obtained by CBC News through an access-to-information request, acknowledges the technology poses civil liberties risks, including the potential to put innocent bystanders under investigation and the risk of discrimination based on visible social characteristics.
The assessment, prepared in 2023, also says the risk of discrimination would be reduced because the software would be configured to search for objects — giving the example of a “red coat” or “green bike” — rather than identifiable traits such as ethnicity.
Lack of oversight?
The SPVM’s admission about the Cloudrunner camera on Wednesday came after a morning of confusion.
Montreal police Chief Fady Dagher initially indicated he had no knowledge of the device on Wednesday morning. Later in the day, Dagher clarified his earlier comments, stating he was distracted by separate news regarding alleged racism at a Montréal-Nord police station.
The chief confirmed the device belonged to the SPVM and was being used to target armed violence and vehicle thefts. Peschard said it was “striking” that the chief didn’t seem to be aware the SPVM was using the technology.
“Whenever new investigative tools are used, it should be under supervision of the leading staff of a police department,” he said. “It’s their responsibility to make sure there are protocols and people’s private information is protected.”
Public records show that last October, Montreal awarded a $17,134 contract with Genetec to obtain four Cloudrunner units on a one-year subscription.
While only one camera was spotted and removed, Bélanger told CBC News that more cameras could be added depending on the needs of investigations tackling armed violence, motor vehicle thefts and violence against merchants.
Andrew Elvish, vice-president at Genetec, said the technology is designed to respect people’s privacy and every interaction with the data gathered is logged.
“You should have an expectation of reasonable privacy,” he said, then added, “it’s a trade off. If the threat of something bad happening is high, as a community, what are we comfortable with giving up to ensure that the community is safe?”
In response to a request for comment, a City of Montreal spokesperson said it had not installed the Cloudrunner camera, and referred questions about its deployment to the SPVM.
During last fall’s election campaign, Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada championed the creation of a “voluntary” security camera registry that would allow officers to map out the locations of residents’ home closed-circuit television cameras.
In Quebec, the Commission d’accès à l’information mandates that video surveillance in public spaces by public bodies must address a “legitimate, important, urgent and real objective” and urges organizations to only collect images necessary to solve a targeted problem.
