EPS use of Clearview AI facial recognition — OIPC commissioner statement + reporting

Original source: https://oipc.ab.ca/investigation-eps-clearview-ai/

Local snapshot (archived 2026-07-03): full-page PDF committed at sources/budgets/_archive/eps-clearview-ai-oipc/eps-clearview-ai-oipc.pdf.

OIPC (Commissioner Jill Clayton, Feb 28, 2020): - Confirmed EPS employees used Clearview AI facial recognition; EPS "was previously not forthcoming about its use of Clearview AI's facial recognition technology." - Use discovered only after a Clearview AI data breach exposed the client list. - OIPC opened investigation into EPS compliance with Alberta FOIP; contacted other Alberta municipal forces. - The linked page is the preliminary announcement, not final findings.

From press reporting (CBC / Global News): - Three "fairly senior" EPS officers used Clearview AI; learned of it at a conference; used "once, in a limited capacity" in an auto-theft investigation in January 2020. - No purchase/contract: use was via unapproved free trial accounts, not a paid procurement. Cost to EPS: effectively $0 (unapproved trial). Confidence high that this was NOT a budgeted procurement.

Successor tool (2022): EPS procured NeoFace Reveal (NEC Corporation of America), went live start of 2022 in a "limited production environment." EPS did not disclose the amount spent. (Comparator: Toronto police spent $450,000 on NeoFace in 2018.)