The Edmonton Police Service (EPS) has ignited a significant privacy debate with its announcement of a pilot project to test artificial intelligence (AI) facial recognition technology on officers' body-worn cameras. Described as a world-first initiative with U.S. manufacturer Axon, the program is being met with alarm by privacy advocates who argue it fundamentally alters the purpose of police cameras.
From Accountability Tool to Surveillance Instrument
Body-worn cameras were originally introduced across North America with a clear promise: to foster police accountability and transparency. The social contract was that these devices would create an objective record of police-citizen interactions, deter misconduct, and build public trust. The Edmonton Police Service's new pilot, however, flips this concept on its head.
Instead of serving primarily as a tool for the public to oversee police conduct, the cameras are being retrofitted to watch the public on behalf of the police. This shift from an accountability mechanism to a proactive surveillance and identification system represents a profound change in policing philosophy that many find deeply concerning.
The Details of the Edmonton Pilot Program
The "proof of concept" testing is scheduled to run through December 2025. According to EPS, the AI software will operate in a "silent mode." This means the facial recognition algorithm will scan individuals captured on camera and compare them to police databases, but officers will not receive live alerts. Any potential matches for individuals with serious warrants or safety flags will be reviewed retrospectively from the footage.
This technical detail offers little comfort to critics. The core issue remains that any member of the public who walks past an officer equipped with this technology could be scanned and identified without their knowledge or consent. Citizens going about their daily business are effectively treated as a pool of potential suspects, their biometric data run against criminal databases simply for being in public view.
Edmonton as a Global Testing Ground
A particularly troubling aspect for many Edmontonians is that their city is being used as a testing ground for Axon's newest product. No other police service in the world has deployed facial recognition technology on body-worn cameras in this manner. This makes residents of Edmonton unwitting test subjects for a system that Axon may later market to police forces globally.
This move appears to contradict Axon's own prior ethical stance. In 2019, the company's independent AI Ethics Board reviewed the use of facial recognition and concluded the technology was too flawed and prone to bias to be ethically deployed on body cameras. Axon subsequently made a public pledge not to pursue such technology for this use. The fact that Edmonton is now trialing the very application Axon's own experts warned against raises serious questions about oversight and risk assessment.
The Edmonton Police Service's pilot represents a pivotal moment in the intersection of law enforcement and technology. While the service may view it as a modern tool for public safety, the transformation of body cameras from instruments of transparency into tools of mass surveillance threatens to erode the very trust they were meant to build. The December test period will be closely watched, as its outcomes could set a precedent for police forces far beyond Edmonton's city limits.
