The Minister of Transport orders the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec to suspend its facial recognition project, until the state-owned company regains control of its digital shift.
• Read also: After its computer failures, the SAAQ launches into facial recognition
Our Parliamentary Office revealed on Tuesday that after the catastrophic launch of its digital transformation, the SAAQ was embarking on facial recognition to ensure the integrity of driver’s license holders.
Minister Geneviève Guilbault calls for the suspension of the project which must “introduce a facial recognition solution” to optimize the SAAQ’s photo bank.
“I don’t think I need to dwell at length on the challenges facing the SAAQ in terms of digital transition. There are organizational challenges as a whole. So, until further notice, I asked that we put it on hold, although the objectives are laudable,” she said.
In a missive sent to the CEO of the SAAQ, Denis Marselais, the minister affirms that “Quebec remains committed to improving the quality and performance of our services”, but that “the deployment of such a project is sensitive.”
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Recently, the catastrophic launch of the new SAAQclic digital platform combined with the commissioning of the first milestone of Quebec’s digital identity turned sour, causing a chaotic transition and long queues outside the SAAQs.
“Considering the delicate issues of perception and trust of our citizens towards our public organizations, I ask you to immediately suspend any procedure or activity related to the use of a facial recognition solution”, indicates Ms. Guilbault. “This suspension will last until the Company has regained, to my satisfaction, control of its operations and planning, particularly with regard to the digital shift.”
The interim leader of the official opposition, Marc Tanguay, believes that such a project at the SAAQ raised a “big red flag”.
“Facial recognition, SAAQ, seems to me, both in the same sentence… I don’t know if you recognize my face there, but alert, alert, alert,” he said.
The parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, believes that the SAAQ should focus on playing its primary role: issuing driver’s licenses to people.
“Even that, at the moment, is not easy at the SAAQ because of technological problems. So to hear that she wants to get into a technology as sensitive as facial recognition worries me,” he said.
Parti Québécois Pascal Bérubé is also worried and is asking for this type of project to be stopped. “It’s not reassuring, and facial recognition, I am convinced that there are many Quebecers today who are worried.”
The leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, Éric Duhaime, had also asked that this project be “put on ice.”