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City police are assessing the potential to use facial recognition technology to battle crime — and the privacy and security implications of such a move.

The Edmonton Police Service is currently in the process of “project assessing” the potential of using facial recognition to help with existing cases, police spokeswoman Cheryl Sheppard said this past week.

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“The intention will be to use the technology in response to existing criminal investigations, using a database of pictures previously obtained for a lawful purpose,” said Sheppard.

The technology, she stresses, is not currently in use in Edmonton.

But if police eventually do implement a facial recognition technology plan, it would involve scanning photos obtained for legal reasons in the past, such as mug shots.

The Clearview AI technology, used by a handful of law enforcement agencies across the country, can take a mugshot, for example, and scan the internet, including Facebook, Twitter and other social media, to find out more information about a person.