Police in Edmonton, Canada, have begun testing artificial intelligence–enabled body cameras capable of recognizing about 7,000 people on a “high-risk” watch list — a trial that could signal a major shift toward adopting facial recognition technology long deemed too invasive for law enforcement in North America.
The program marks a sharp turn from 2019, when Axon Enterprise, Inc., the top body-camera manufacturer, backed away from facial recognition amid serious ethical concerns. Now, the new pilot — launched last week — is drawing intense scrutiny well beyond Edmonton, the northernmost city in North America with over a million residents.
Barry Friedman, the former chair of Axon’s AI ethics board who once helped block the technology, told the Associated Press he fears the company is moving ahead without adequate transparency, public discussion or expert review.
“These tools carry major costs and risks,” said Friedman, now an NYU law professor. “There must be clear evidence of their benefits before deploying them.”
Axon CEO Rick Smith insists the Edmonton trial is not a full-scale rollout but “early-stage field research” to evaluate performance and determine proper safeguards.
Testing the system in Canada allows the company to gather independent insights and refine oversight frameworks before any future U.S. consideration, Smith wrote in a blog post.
Edmonton police say the system is meant to enhance officer safety by detecting individuals flagged as violent, armed, dangerous or high-risk. The main list contains 6,341 names, with another 724 listed for serious outstanding warrants.
“We want this focused strictly on serious offenders,” said Ann-Li Cooke, Axon’s director of responsible AI.
The outcome could influence policing globally: Axon dominates the U.S. body-camera market and is expanding in Canada, recently beating Motorola Solutions for an RCMP contract. Motorola says it can enable facial recognition on its cameras but has purposely chosen not to use the feature for proactive identification — at least for now.
Alberta’s government mandated police body cameras provincewide in 2023 to increase accountability and speed up investigations. But real-time facial recognition remains divisive, with critics warning of surveillance overreach and racial bias. Some U.S. states have restricted the technology, while the European Union banned public real-time face scanning except in extreme cases.
In contrast, the U.K. has embraced it, with London’s system contributing to 1,300 arrests in two years.
Details about Edmonton’s pilot remain limited. Axon declined to disclose which third-party facial recognition model it uses. Police say the trial runs only in daylight through December due to Edmonton’s harsh winters and lighting challenges.
About 50 officers are participating, but they won’t see any real-time match alerts; results will be reviewed afterward. In the future, police hope it may warn officers of nearby high-risk individuals when responding to calls.
Privacy concerns are growing. Alberta’s privacy commissioner received a privacy impact assessment only on Dec. 2 — the day the trial was publicly announced — and is now reviewing it.
University of Alberta criminologist Temitope Oriola said Edmonton’s past tensions with Indigenous and Black communities make this experiment particularly sensitive. “Edmonton is essentially a testing ground,” he said. “It could lead to improvements — but that’s not guaranteed.”
Axon acknowledges accuracy challenges, especially under poor lighting, long distances or angles that disproportionately affect darker-skinned people. It insists every match will undergo human verification and says part of the test is determining how human reviewers must be trained to reduce risks.
Friedman argues Axon must release its findings — and that decisions about such technology shouldn’t be left to police agencies or private companies alone.
“A pilot can be valuable,” he said. “But it requires transparency and accountability. None of that is happening here. They’ve found a department willing to proceed, and they’re simply moving forward.”
