Calgary police 'carding' practice to be modernized, made more accountable

Calgary's police chief says the force'sprocedures for"carding" whereofficersstop peoplefor questioning and recordtheir personal information will be modernized and made more accountable.

The Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre held a seminar Tuesday at the University of Calgaryto compare carding in Calgary andToronto, where the practice was recently reined in by the province following allegations that it often amountsto racial profiling.

Police Chief Roger Chaffintold the participants that the lessons learned in that cityhave informed the changes being made in Calgary.

"The carding practice in Toronto was a wakeup call to start looking at, what are our practices looking like, how do we account for what we're doing is it reasonable and necessary" he said, noting the procedures used by the Calgary Police Service (CPS) are out of step with modern expectations around rights and privacy.

• Police carding a useful tool for Calgary police, says chief
• Calgary police 'carding' raises concerns, says civil liberties group that filed FOIP request
• Police street checks: Valuable investigative tool or racial profiling?

"It caused us to review our entire program."

Chaffinsays by the end of October, the present Calgary Police Service (CPS) system for cardingor "check-up slips,"as it's also knownwill be decommissioned and replaced with a more accountable,modernizedprocedure that will becalled "info posts."

"If someone collects data on someone that's non-criminal, but merely based on suspicion, there's going to be a strong element, thatour intelligence group has to go through that data and score it and understand itis it relevant, real data or is it not. And if it's not, if it simply was not relevant or necessary, it can be released," he said.

"Why that person, why that place, what were you attempting to garner by gathering that information."

Under the new system, information that is determined that cannot be justifiably kept on file will be deleted within a year,Chaffinsaid.

As it prepares to introduce its revised procedure, theCPS will be meeting with the Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties Association, which also made a presentation at Tuesday's seminar.

Thegroup's president, KellyErnst, said data obtained through a freedom of information request revealedthatcommunities with the highest number of visible minoritiesespecially District 5 in the northeast have higher rates of carding.

"I think it's really important for the Calgary Police Service to look into this issue and determine why carding is so high in a region that is so diverse."

Chaffintold the seminar that the CPS is confronting the question of bias.

He says theforce isintroducing a new,mandatory"fair and impartial policing program"by the end of the year to help ensure officers' police work is not clouded by bias towards racial minorities or other groups.

"I think this issue of carding, the conversations we've had with Rocky Mountain Civil Liberties particularly, really brought it back, that if we are going to stand up a new program, we also have to re-imagine, re-communicate how bias is understood in the organization," he said.

• MORE CALGARY NEWS |3 Calgary police officers face criminal charges for violent arrest caught on video
• MORE CALGARY NEWS |Calgary man, 85, charged in death of wife, 80, in Rideau Park home