University of Calgary

Purpose

The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence Facial Recognition Technology (AI-FRT) in the private and public sectors has been plagued by issues of privacy as well as racial and gender bias, as the technology regularly misidentifies or fails to identify individuals of a particular gender or race. This research project seeks to examine and identify the race, gender and privacy issues related mainly to the development of AI-FRT by the private sector in Canada, and its use by both the private and public sectors in Canada. Other objectives of the research include to develop a framework and guidelines to address race, gender and privacy impacts arising from the development and deployment of AI-FRT by private sector developers in Canada; to identify possible reform of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) to legislatively address race, gender and privacy impacts arising from private sector development and deployment of AI-FRT; to collaborate with the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Center (ACLRC) to increase public understanding and awareness of race, gender and privacy impacts of AI-FRT through webinars, workshops and publication of research papers; and to strengthen research capacity in academia by training graduate students to research on race, gender and privacy issues related to AI-FRT.