The Office of the Ontario Commissioner for Information and Personal Data issued a statement to “clarify” the comments made by the interim Toronto Police Chief last week, as the agency released new data showing that blacks and racists are facing disproportionate use of force. At the time, caretaker chief James Ramer said the data could not be used to investigate the actions of individual officers because anti-racism law and the privacy commissioner require anonymity.
Read more: Toronto police chief apologizes to black community for racially leaked data
Ramer also said that there are existing procedures, such as internal investigations and courts, to deal with the actions of individual officers, and that the force does not tolerate “overt racism”. The story goes on under the ad In a statement, the commissioner’s office said it had not indicated that applicable laws prevented police from using the data to “inform the supervision, training and discipline of their officers”. He says the laws are designed to “protect people’s personal information and not information that identifies a person with a business, professional or official status”. The report on match-based data released last week is being presented to the Toronto Police Service today.
Read more: Toronto police statistics show disproportionate use of force against blacks
The board’s policy on racial data was approved in 2019 after the provincial government passed the anti-racism law, which requires many public sectors to collect such information. Trending Stories
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At the time, the board said the data would not be used to identify specific officers or manage their performance, but to identify trends that contribute to professional development and organizational change. Ramer confirmed today that the commissioner’s office had not provided advice on the rule restricting the use of race-based data on systemic issues. However, he said the force data analysis was “built to comply with board policy and therefore simply cannot be used for individual performance issues”. The story goes on under the ad The interim leader apologized to the city’s black and racist residents last week as statistics were released, saying the force should do better. Many supporters and members of the community have said that the report only confirms what blacks and racists have been saying for decades. 1:10 Toronto police will expand data set to analyze racial over-policing Previous Video Next Video The figures show that blacks in the city faced a disproportionate amount of police force and use of force in 2020 and were more likely to put an officer against them – whether considered armed or unarmed – than whites in the same situation. The report also shows that people in the Middle East were over-represented in the use and use of force, while Latins and East and Southeast Asians experienced less enforcement than they were in the population, but saw more use of force when interacted with the police. . The story goes on under the ad There were also racial differences in strip investigations, with Indigenous, black and white residents being disproportionately sought after compared to how many were arrested. © 2022 The Canadian Press
