The owner of Center Rideau Center will not say he uses facial recognition



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Cadillac Fairview, the real estate company owning the Rideau Center, refuses to say whether it uses face recognition software to track the age and gender of visitors to the Ottawa Mall.

The activity was discovered after a buyer At Chinook Center in Calgary, another Cadillac Fairview property spotted a browser window accidentally opened in one of the shopping center's directories, exposing software from facial recognition running in the background of the digital map.

They took a picture Cadillac Fairview owns 23 shopping centers across Canada

In a statement sent by email to CBC Ottawa, Janine Ramparas, director of communications, said Cadillac Fairview "does not share not the details of the program, including the locations, as we consider it as owner.

"But to clarify, this software was being tested.We did not deploy it."

Technology is trying to predict the approximate age and bad.Ramparas stated that no video or photos are recorded or stored, and that the data is used "to better understand the use of our directories."

"We do not need consent because we do not capture or store images, "said a spokesman for Cadillac Fairview at CBC News

John Lawford, executive director of the Public Interest Advocacy Center, said that he should not matter if the technology is at the testing stage – if consumers are not informed that they are registered, they are spied on.

"There is privacy legislation that requires you I ask first to describe the information you collect, and if that is not done, I think it is Illegal. "" Using a public population to test, it's like treating people like guinea pigs, and that's not fair. "

John Lawford, Executive Director of the Center for the Defense of In the public interest, shopping center managers should post signs explaining the data they collect to allow people to leave. (CBC News)

He says management should post how and why "

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada said it was also concerned about how Cadillac Fairview uses facial recognition.

In an email, A spokesman said that he had "the potential to be the most pervasive of today's popular biometric identification technologies."

Staff from the office of the The Commissioner intends to respond to the company's badertion that it does not collect any personal information.

The office also intends to contact its provincial counterparts.

The Bayshore Shopping Center in Ottawa considered using facial recognition software three years ago after renovations. but decided against. But General Manager Denis Pelletier said the mall had sensors on its doors to track the number of visitors.

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