Regulating police collection of personal information is the main emphasis of the Ontario government’s incoming police street checks regulations. The final regulations, which come into effect Jan. 1, will be mandatory for all Ontario police officers and will apply to situations when they are investigating general criminal activity in a community, inquiring into suspicious activities to detect offences and gathering information for intelligence purposes.
As of Jan. 1, officers must inform people they interact with in these defined circumstances of their right not to provide identifying information, as well as providing a reason for requesting any such information. The reason provided cannot be arbitrary and must not be based on race or being in a high-crime location.
Police must also not pursue information simply because an individual declined to answer questions or otherwise attempted to end the interaction. The regulations contain further details surrounding these interactions including training, data management and an independent reviewer to make recommendations on improving implementation of the regulations.
These regulations attempt to make critical changes to police practices with racialized populations, and underserved and predominantly low-income neighborhoods in the province, which have historically been targeted by law enforcement. Improving knowledge around Charter rights and enforcing unbiased policing will hopefully result in better relations between police and racialized communities, as well as reducing the over-representation of racialized persons in the criminal justice system.
In the summer of 2015 the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS) announced its plan to hold public consultations on the development and drafting of new regulations regarding street checks by police. The goal was to establish clear rules and standard practices to ensure that police officers across the province would conduct street checks in an effective and unbiased manner, while ensuring the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens.
The final regulations can be found on the provincial government website.