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Tory sent a letter to the Toronto Police Services Board dated July 19 recommending that the city expand the number of closed-circuit television cameras to 74 from 34. And in the same letter, he suggested that the city install the ShotSpotter technology “in areas where it will help detect gunshots.”

“These are the tools that the (Police) Chief (Mark Saunders) has asked for and I believe we should do everything in our power to provide them,” Tory wrote. “I support our frontline officers and I believe we have a duty as a police board to provide them with the tools they need to help them do their job.”

Photo by Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press

But the CCLA sent a letter to the mayor before the deadly shooting on Sunday that said the group had “serious concerns regarding the impact of new police surveillance technologies for the city of Toronto.” In particular, the CCLA said it was not aware of ShotSpotter being used “in a Canadian context.”

“It is thus entirely untested in relation to its privacy impacts, its potential use as a tool with evidentiary value in our Canadian courts, or the constitutionality of its use more generally,” said the CCLA, which asked for 10 days to perform a “legal risk analysis” for the city.

ShotSpotter is already used in more than 85 cities across the United States, the company says, as well as in one city in South Africa. Its usage extends to places such as Chicago, where ShotSpotter says the service was expanded from three square miles to more than 100, and New York City, where service is said to have been expanded from 15 square miles to 60.