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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Viewpoints ID: #63266 Hard Software That Reads Faces

Read the following editorial from a website.

Several police services in our province have quietly tested software that compares faces caught on camera with lists of wanted people. The results can arrive in seconds. The rules, by contrast, have not arrived at all, and city councils are now being asked to write them. We believe that police deserve useful tools and that residents deserve to walk down a street without being identified by a machine. Our city can protect both, but only if it acts in the right order.

Inspector Christabel Dufour, who leads technology pilots at a large city service, argues for a narrow approval. She says live matching should be used only at screened events judged to be at high risk, and only against people who already face warrants for violent crimes. Every match, she insists, must be confirmed by a human officer before anyone is stopped, and the logs should be open to review by an outside inspector. Varun Srinivasan, who represents a civil liberties coalition, says police should pause all live scanning in public places. He points to research showing higher error rates for people with darker skin. He also warns that peaceful protesters may stay home if cameras can name them instantly.

Filippa Sheridan, a law professor who studies surveillance, says the line should be drawn between tools rather than between places. She would let police compare a still image from a crime scene with their records, but only with a judge’s approval, and she would ban continuous scanning of streets. She also wants accuracy and bias tests run and published by an agency independent of the police. Augustus Payette, a city councillor, notes that council never voted on the cameras the city already bought. He wants a public list of every surveillance tool the city owns, and a council vote before any tool is used in a new way.

We think Sheridan has drawn the most workable line. Council, in our view, should pause live scanning in public spaces until outside audits show that the software treats every face fairly, and it should allow still-image matching only with a judge’s approval. Dufour’s demand for human confirmation should apply to every match, live or not. Our council should also adopt Payette’s public list this year, because none of us can debate tools we do not know exist. Good policing and public trust depend on each other.

Using the drop-down menu (▾), choose the best option according to the information given on the website.

This editorial is mainly about 1.
.

Who most clearly worries that cameras could discourage people from protesting? 2.
.

Filippa Sheridan’s position would most likely be supported by 3.
.

What outcome does Inspector Christabel Dufour’s condition call for? 4.
.

The editorial’s recommendation is best described as 5.
.

The following is a comment by a visitor to the website page. Complete the comment by choosing the best option to fill in each blank.

I coach a youth soccer team in Brampton, and half the parents on the sidelines were talking about this editorial on Saturday. Inspector Dufour would compare faces only against 6.
, and she gave her reasons plainly. The coalition’s representative cites research showing 7.
, and the province owes us a direct answer. My teenagers post photos of every game online, so I know how easily a face lands in a database nobody agreed to join. Filippa Sheridan wants accuracy tests published by 8.
, a detail worth repeating at every council meeting this fall. The councillor points out that council never 9.
, and residents should find that troubling. I was also struck that a match can come back 10.
, something I had not seen reported anywhere else.

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