Paola Loriggio, The Canadian Press Published Wednesday, June 22, 2022 1:42 PM EDT Last Updated on Wednesday, June 22, 2022 4:13 PM EDT
Toronto police have been told to study whether the race-based data they are legally required to collect could be used to identify and investigate “specific instances of possible unequal police checks,” as well as broader systemic problems.
The Toronto Police Services Board on Wednesday approved a set of motions to examine – and potentially expand – what can be done with the data under provincial law and its own policy.
“In terms of identifying specific divisions or individual officials, the intent is certainly to see if this can be done and how, while respecting the applicable legislation that creates the framework in which it is done,” said Ryan Teschner, executive director and head of the board. personal, he said in an email.
The board will then review this assessment and review its policy on race-based data, Teschner said, adding that the motions “contemplate a situation in the future where such an analysis could be possible, while respecting the legal framework.”
When it adopted the policy in 2019, the council said the data would not be used to identify specific officers or manage their performance, but to “identify trends that contribute to professional development and organizational change.”
Last week, Toronto police released the first set of statistics compiled under the policy. Figures show that black, racialized residents face disproportionate use of force and, for some groups, disproportionate application and more frequent searches.
The policy was enacted in 2019 after the provincial government passed the Anti-Racism Act, which requires various public sectors to collect this information.
At a news conference last week, Acting Police Chief James Ramer said the data was intended to highlight systemic issues and could not be used to investigate the actions of individual agents because the Anti-Racism Act and the Privacy Commissioner require that they are anonymous. .
Ramer also said that there were existing processes, such as internal investigations and the courts, to deal with the actions of individual agents and that the force does not tolerate “overt racism.”
Since then, the Ontario privacy commissioner has clarified that the law does not prevent the police from using the data to assess and discipline individual officers.
“The (information and privacy commissioner) has not stated that the Anti-Racism Act or the Municipal Law on Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy prevents a police service from using the data, anonymously or otherwise, collected as part of a race-based data collection, a strategy to inform the oversight, training and discipline of its police officers, “said the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario in a statement. press release.
“These laws are designed to protect the personal information of individuals rather than the information that identifies a person on a business, professional or official basis.”
Ramer acknowledged the clarification at Wednesday’s police board meeting, confirming that the privacy commissioner’s office did not offer advice related to the rule restricting the use of race-based data to systemic problems.
But he said the strength data analysis was “created to comply with the board’s policy and therefore simply cannot be used for individual performance issues.”
Toronto Mayor John Tory, who is a member of the police board, said Wednesday that the report “clearly tells us we have a problem,” but anonymization makes it impossible to “delve deeper and determine where the problem “.
While there are cultural and systemic issues that need to be addressed, “I think it’s impossible to meet this big challenge without addressing individual behavior,” he said.
“I think unacceptable behavior is limited to a relatively small group, but even if that number is relatively small … individual behavior can affect and affect the overall police culture,” the mayor said.
Ramer apologized to black and racialized residents of the city last week as statistics were released, saying the force must do better.
Many advocates and community members have said the report only confirms what black and racialized people have been saying for decades.
Figures show that blacks in the city faced a disproportionate amount of police execution and use of force in 2020 and were more likely to be targeted by an officer with a gun, either perceived as armed or unarmed, than whites in the same situation.
The report also shows that people in the Middle East were overrepresented in the application and use of force, while Latin and East and Southeast Asian residents experienced less application. compared to their representation in the population, but they saw more use of force when they interacted with the police. .
There were also racial differences in naked searches, with indigenous residents black and white disproportionately searched compared to how many of them were arrested.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on June 22, 2022.