Ottawa has used AI in nearly 300 projects and initiatives: research

Canada’s federal government has used artificial intelligence in nearly 300 projects and initiatives, new research has found — including to help predict the outcome of tax cases, sort temporary visa applications and promote diversity in hiring.

Joanna Redden, an associate professor at Western University, pieced together the database using news reports, documents tabled in Parliament and access-to-information requests.

Of the 303 automated tools in the register as of Wednesday, 95 per cent were used by federal government agencies.

“There needs to be far more public debate about what kinds of systems should be in use, and there needs to be more public information available about how these systems are being used,” Redden said in an interview.

She argued the data exposes a problem with the Liberal government’s proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, the first federal bill specifically aimed at AI.

“That piece of legislation is not going to apply to, for the most part, government uses of AI. So the sheer number of applications that we’ve identified demonstrates what a problem that is.”

Bill C-27 would introduce new obligations for “high-impact” systems, such as the use of AI in employment. That’s something the Department of National Defense experimented with when it used AI to reduce bias in hiring decisions, in a program that ended in March 2021.

A spokesperson said the department used one platform to shortlist candidates to interview, and another to assess an “individual’s personality, cognitive ability and social acumen” and to match them to profiles. The candidates provided explicit consent, and the data informed human decision-making.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said two pilot projects from 2018 to help