The owners of Richmond Centre used facial recognition technology at that mall and others across the country, without customers’ knowledge or consent, an investigation by federal and provincial privacy commissioners has found.
In total, Cadillac Fairview (CF) collected five million shoppers’ images and analyzed sensitive biometric data using video analytics, in contravention of privacy laws, according to the privacy commissioners of Canada, B.C. and Alberta.
And while the company has removed the cameras, the commissioners say they “remain concerned” that CF refused their request to ensure that express, meaningful consent is obtained from shoppers, in the event the company chooses to use the technology again.
“Questions about when an organization is collecting personal information can be complex, but the conclusion we came to about cameras in mall directories was straightforward,” said Michael McEvoy, B.C.’s information and privacy commissioner.
“Pictures of individuals were taken and analyzed in a manner that required notice and consent.”
CF – a Toronto-based real estate company that owns and operates 23 malls across the country – imbedded small, inconspicuous cameras inside its digital information kiosks at CF Richmond Centre, CF Pacific Centre in downtown Vancouver and 10 other malls in Canada.
The goal of the technology wasn’t to identify individuals, the company said, but to analyze the age and gender of shoppers.
According to the privacy commissioners, CF also said that shoppers were made aware of the cameras via decals that it placed on shopping mall entrance doors, which referred to the company’s privacy policy – a measure the commissions ultimately found to be “insufficient.”
CF also told the privacy commissioners that it was not collecting personal information, since the images taken by the cameras were “briefly analyzed, then deleted.”
Those images, however, were stored in a centralized database by a third party, which CF said it was “unaware” existed – which elevated the risk that the data could be used by unauthorized parties.
Furthermore, the investigation found that CF did, in fact, collect personal information, contravening privacy laws by failing to obtain “meaningful consent.”
“Shoppers had no reason to expect their image was being collected by an inconspicuous camera, or that it would be used, with facial recognition technology, for analysis,” said Daniel Therrien, privacy commissioner for Canada.
“The lack of meaningful consent was particularly concerning given the sensitivity of biometric data, which is a unique and permanent characteristic of our body and a key to our identity.”
The regulators said they launched the investigation following media reports that raised questions about CF’s practices.
The Richmond News reported in September 2018 how the investigation was launched after a complaint was made by a mall customer in Calgary.
In August of that year, the female customer noticed an embedded camera operating on the digital directory at CF’s Chinook Centre in Calgary.
When asked by the News at the time, if the cameras were also being used in Richmond Centre, a CF spokesperson refused to provide any details, due to the investigation.
CF removed the cameras from its digital directory kiosks in response to the investigation, and has no current plans to reinstall the technology, according to the privacy commissioners.
Apart from data required for legal purposes, the company has also deleted all information associated with the video analytics technology – including the five million biometric representations of shoppers’ faces, retained for “no discernable reason.”
If CF were to use such technology in the future, it should take steps to obtain express, meaningful consent before capturing and analyzing the biometric facial images of shoppers, the three privacy commissioners recommended.
However, CF has refused to make that commitment, according to the commissioners.
The investigation found that the technology was used in the following CF malls across Canada:
- CF Richmond Centre (British Columbia)
- CF Pacific Centre (British Columbia)
- CF Market Mall (Alberta)
- CF Chinook Centre (Alberta)
- CF Polo Park (Manitoba)
- CF Galeries d’Anjou (Quebec)
- CF Carrefour Laval (Quebec)
- CF Toronto Eaton Centre (Ontario)
- CF Sherway Gardens (Ontario)
- CF Lime Ridge (Ontario)
- CF Fairview Mall (Ontario)
- CF Markville Mall (Ontario)
- With files from Alan Campbell
