OTTAWA—The Liberal government is being asked to impose a sweeping moratorium on police and private businesses’ use of Clearview AI until Parliament and privacy regulators can investigate the controversial facial recognition company.

The RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police, and more than a dozen private businesses and law enforcement agencies across the country have confirmed to the Star they’ve used Clearview AI. The U.S. company claims to have amassed a database of billions of photos of regular citizens through scraping the web and uses artificial intelligence to match people’s images in that database.

The collection of personal information without the knowledge or consent of Canadians would represent a “clear violation” of Canada’s privacy laws, according to NDP MP Charlie Angus.

“Serious questions are being raised about how this company obtained their massive database, about who is being given access to this information and whether such access represents potential breaches of Canadian law,” Angus wrote in a letter to Justice Minister David Lametti, obtained by the Star.

“Until strong standards to protect Canadians’ privacy are developed, I urge you to implement a moratorium in Canada on the commercial and public sector use of this technology in public spaces, and wherever explicit consent cannot be feasibly obtained.”

The Star reported Thursday more than 20 police forces across Canada had obtained log-ins and searched Clearview AI’s databases in recent months. But Clearview’s client list included more than just cops — the Department of National Defence, VIA Rail police, Rexall pharmacies, and at least one private sector surveillance company had tested Clearview’s services.

The reporting was based on a database obtained by BuzzFeed news that included Clearview’s international clients, shared exclusively with the Star. Clearview AI and its representatives have not responded to multiple requests for comment from the Star.

The RCMP, who had long refused to comment on the use of facial recognition software, issued a public statement on their use of Clearview AI after being approached by the Star. In his letter to Lametti, Angus questioned the RCMP’s motives for revealing use of the software.

“The timing of the RCMP’s admission … suggests a desire to save face rather than a genuine interest in informing the public,” Angus wrote.

“It remains to be seen if laws were broken or if investigations or prosecutions have been compromised but this admission by the RCMP requires an urgent response.”

Canada’s federal privacy commissioner and a handful of provincial counterparts have launched investigations into Clearview AI. After the RCMP admitted to using the software, Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien’s office said they would probe the national police force’s use of Clearview AI.

Over the weekend, the OPP also admitted that members of its child sexual exploitation, anti-human trafficking, digital forensics and cyber-crime units had all been using free trial versions of Clearview AI. According to the force, the software helped identify victims in one instance and led to child pornography-related offences against one suspect.

But while police point to the utility of facial recognition technology, the legality of their use of Clearview AI remains in question.

MPs from across party lines agreed that the House of Commons ethics committee — which just made wide-ranging recommendations on updating Canada’s aging privacy laws — need to investigate Clearview and its Canadian users.

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Until regulators and MPs complete their investigations, Angus said the Liberal government needs to halt the use of Clearview AI in Canada.

“Every day your government delays in responding puts the privacy of more and more Canadians at risk,” Angus wrote.

With files from Kate Allen and Wendy Gillis