My First Time Speaking at Toronto City Hall

Thoughts on Democracy’s User Experience

By Khasir Hean, Organizer at Technologists For Democracy and Civic Dashboard team member

I spoke at City Hall for the first time and got interviewed by Global News! (Apparently a CBC camera was also on me while I was speaking!)

A week before our speeches, JJ, a local strategic consultant, brought up that there would be an upcoming agenda item (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) (see original on TMMIS (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)) on an autonomous vehicle pilot by Magna International (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). The pilot is being overseen by the Ministry of Transportation Ontario, so Toronto has no direct say in how it’s being run, but is allowed to submit comments.

Magna wants to test a self-driving vehicle for food delivery. It’s operating at under 32 km/h with a human-operated “chase vehicle” following nearby, as well as a remote human supervisor. The pilot started in May and will last until the end of 2025.

JJ pointed out that Magna was doing some concerning things highlighted in their privacy policy:

[…] If you are within the surrounding environment of one of our SDVs, the sensors may collect your personal information. The sensor data that is collected includes:

- Video recordings and images, including facial images of individuals in the surrounding areas, vehicles (including vehicle license plates) and other nearby objects […]

— Magna International: Privacy Notice | City Delivery by Magna (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)

And later we discovered Magna’s reasoning—which we still don’t think is sufficient reason to record everyone’s faces—as well as a disquieting fact that vehicle license plates will be blurred:

Vehicle license plates will be automatically blurred but faces of pedestrians will not because Magna believes that pedestrian faces are very useful to determine gaze, pose and intent of motion of a pedestrian or cyclist, such as whether a person is about to cross the path of a vehicle or not.

— City of Toronto: REPORT FOR ACTION Automated Vehicle Pilot Deployment in Toronto Under the Highway Traffic Act (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)

JJ, Ilya (Civic Dashboard’s brainfather) and I worked together to understand the issues behind the pilot and what messages we should send. This was really an ad hoc thing that we happened to bring together - we each took time to align and understand the issues before writing our speeches separately. I thought I’d give the speech online until the night before, when Ilya told me he’d be going to City Hall in person with JJ. (Which turned out to be a good thing, since I wouldn’t have been interviewed by Global News otherwise!) I managed to jot down some bullet points on the morning of, once I was sitting in the committee room.

On June 11th, I got to City Hall at 9:30 am and went through security. I’ve been to City Hall a couple of times before for Civic Tech (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) nights, so this wasn’t new to me. The Infrastructure and Environment Committee was meeting in Committee Room 1, so I headed up the stairs to find the room. (Side note: circular architecture is nice on the eyes but confusing to navigate!) When I got to the room, the doors were closed but a digital sign indicated it was the right committee. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to just walk in, until someone else came up and did just that.

It was definitely an intimidating experience for someone deputing in person for the first time. The room was full of staff members, councillors and police officers all chatting and settling in before the committee would begin. I took a seat at the back wall and waited for Ilya and JJ to show up. Ilya showed up shortly after I did. JJ was slotted to be the very first deputant of the day, and thankfully she showed up right before the committee began the meeting. Akhil, a friend of Ilya’s, also showed up online to make a speech with us.

Check us out starting at the 18m30 mark!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQWsX_HQn-0&t=1110s (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) 

Councillors asked questions after our deputations like, “What can we do about this?” We were saying that we can inform Torontonians with signs pointing out Magna’s pilot and face-recording practices. But Akhil brought up an excellent point that we as random Toronto residents should not be the sole ones answering this question. Really, our role is to bring up issues that we face, and trust that the city will do its diligence in asking experts how best to tackle these issues.

Afterwards, we were approached by Matthew at Global News to do an interview, which you can find here (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)! 

I decided recently that I want to play a more active role in shaping our city - not that I haven’t been already. I’m a machine learning engineer by trade, and an activist in my free time. I volunteer with Civic Dashboard and other organizations like TTCriders (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre) who want to improve the quality of services in the city. But what I’ve realized recently is that there is a lack of advocacy for public good from a technological perspective. Sure, there are organizations out there like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), but they aren’t comprised of technologists. There’s also OpenMedia (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre), but they focus more on telecommunications and media issues from an (inter)national lens. Meanwhile, the United States has the Electronic Frontier Foundation (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). I look up to all these organizations as an inspiration for what drives me every day.

Since our deputations, city councillors have been supportive of our actions and have even indicated that folks at the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario are concerned with what Magna is doing! It’s very motivating to have support from more powerful allies than ourselves. Also, we’ve recently been featured on the front page of the Annex Gleaner (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)!

All this to say, this is why we’ve started Technologists for Democracy (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre). Our goal is to keep tech companies and governments accountable to the public, by advocating for technological change for social good. We’re part of the growing Civic Tech movement here in Toronto, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary in the city, and we’re a sister project to Civic Dashboard. We’re a group of people who want to get directly involved with the way that democracy and technology shape our everyday lives. 

Collectively, we can make a difference!