In Canada, carding, officially known in Ontario as the Community Contacts Policy, is an intelligence gathering policy involving the stopping, questioning, and documenting of individuals when no particular offence is being investigated. The interactions take place in public, private or any place police have contact with the public. The information collected is kept on record in the Field Information Report (FIR) database. FIRs include details including the individuals' gender, race, the reason for the interaction, location, and the names of any associates, to build a database for unspecified future use. Officially, individuals are not legally detained, but this distinction is not clear. Carding programs have been shown to consume a considerable amount of police resources, with little to no verifiable results on the level of crime. Carding is also known to contribute to a disproportionate amount of black and Indigenous people being recorded in law enforcement databases. Consequences for Indigenous and racialized populations include mental and physical health problems, loss of trust with the police, disparities within the criminal justice system, and social disadvantage, including potential loss of educational and employment opportunities.
In summer of 2014, the Toronto Police Service discontinued the use of physical hard copy cards; officers were instead directed to enter the information captured during community engagements into their memobook as Community Safety Notes, which may be retained for a maximum of seven years. Ontario's 2014 Counter Terrorism Plan directs police to ensure carding intelligence "is shared regularly with key partners", including Criminal Intelligence Service Canada, the Ontario Provincial Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Meaning Regina Police Chief Evan Bray stated that the distinction between carding and police-civilian interactions depends upon whether or not the information collected is recorded. In 2017, the Vancouver Police Department definition of a "street check" is when an officer stops a person to conduct an interview or investigation in regard to suspicious activity or a suspected crime. In 2018, the Vancouver Police Department clarified that an incident is only considered a "street check" when an officer successfully records an individual's personal information.
Kevin Brookwell, a spokesman for the Calgary Police Service, claimed that the term "carding" originated in Eastern Canada, though Lethbridge Police Chief Rob Davis asserted that the term "carding" originated in the United States, and that a street check is not stop and frisk. Waterloo Police Chief Bryan Larkin claims officers card individuals to determine how people connect to each other. Halifax Regional Police says officers also conduct passive street checks, where records are based on observations rather than interactions.
The Victoria Police Department defines street checks as "when a police officer proactively conducts a field interview or investigation with a member of the public related to suspicious activity or a suspected crime".
Aliases Street Check Reports The Peel Regional Police refers to the practice as a "street check" and enter information gathered from "street check reports" into a database that Peel police maintains. The Edmonton Police Service also uses the term street check report. Collection of Information In Certain Circumstances (CIICC) Espanola Police call this practice "collection of information in certain circumstances" (CIICC). Check-Up Slips Prior to November 2016, the Calgary Police Service had a practice of collecting Check-up Slips. Street Intelligence Reports The Lethbridge Police Service has a practice of gathering Street Intelligence Reports. Contact Interviews The Saskatchewan Police Commission avoids the term carding because it prefers to use a more neutral term In July 2018, the Saskatoon Board of Police Commissioners, defined a Contact Interview as a "contact with the public initiated by a member of a police service with the intention of gathering information that is not related to a specific known incident or offence". Contact Interview information may be kept for up to five years. Info Posts In October 2016, at a carding seminar held by the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre at the University of Calgary, Calgary Police Chief Roger Chaffin announced that the term check-up slips, will be decommissioned and replaced with the term info posts. Police Stop On 15 January 2020, the Attorney General of British Columbia introduced the term "Police Stop" into section 6.2 of the Provincial Policing Standards. The standard specifies that such an action may include a demand for identifying information.
Scope Ontario regulations constraining carding came to effect at the beginning of 2017, changing the scope of carding in Ontario cities.
Prior to 2017 The PACER report indicates that from 2009 to 2011, there were 1,104,561 persons entered into the Toronto Police Service Field Information Report (FIR) database. In 2009 the Vancouver Police Department made 11,507 entries for street checks into the BC PRIME database. Between 2008 and 2017, officers conducted 97,281 street checks. 15% were Indigenous persons, (2% of local population), 4% were of Black persons (<1% of local population), with racial disparities increasing over time. The Ottawa Police Service entered 45,802 people into the Ottawa Records Management System (RMS) database from 23,402 street checks in the years 2011 to 2014 In 2012, Andrew Tysowski discovered that while innocent of any crime, the Ottawa Police Service had collected and stored some of his personal information for six years. The Hamilton Police Service published the annual number of street checks its ACTION team completed in its 2013 year-end report to the service's oversight board: 5,423 Street Checks in 2011, 4,803 in 2012 and 3,684 in 2013, records of these activities were recorded in the service's NICHE database. From 2005 to 2017, Halifax Regional Police officers have submitted 68,400 street checks of 36,700 individuals. Information is stored in Versadex, a Halifax Regional Police database also used to store other information. The Waterloo Regional Police have conducted 68,400 street checks between 2005 and 2015. Stops in the region increased from 1339 in 2005 to 8500 in 2013. Records capture date, time, and personal information such as address, height, weight, sex, and race. Since 2006, Niagara Regional Police officers have submitted 157,315 street checks. From 2009 to 2014, the Peel Regional Police conducted 159,303 street checks, recorded on PRP17 cards, and a freedom-of-information request by a Peel Region resident revealed that black people were three times more likely to be stopped than whites. Between 2011 and 2014, the Edmonton Police Service carded 105,306 individuals, an average 26,000-plus people per year. In Edmonton, carding information is stored indefinitely. The Police Service has acknowledged that "police do not inform people they have the right to walk away" and take the position that "some of the responsibility should be on individuals to know their rights". In 2014, the London Police Service performed 8,400 street checks and entered 14,000 people, vehicles and properties into their database, of those identified, 71% were white, 7.7% were black and 5.3% were of First Nation heritage. In 2010, the Calgary Police Service carded 47,000 people, while in 2015 around 27,000 people having been carded. In 2014, the Saskatoon Police Service stopped nearly 4,500 people, about 1.7 per cent of the city's population. In 2015, 735 street checks were conducted. In Saskatoon, street check records are kept for ten years. In 2014, the Windsor Police Service generated 953 street check reports, the service averages 1,265 street checks a year. In 2015, the Lethbridge Police Service filed 1,257 carding reports, and 1,007 in 2016. Though 80 per cent of the Lethbridge's population identify as caucasian, 60 per cent of the recorded carding incidents in Lethbridge involved non-caucasians. In 2012, the Edmonton Police Service filed 27,322 carding reports, 27,155 in 2015 and 22,969 in 2016. During 2016 in Edmonton, Indigenous women were 10 times more likely to be stopped by officers.
Since 2017 In 2017, the Hamilton Police Service filed 5 carding reports. In 2017, the Ottawa Police Service recorded 7 carding stops. In 2017, the Vancouver Police Department recorded 6,322 street checks. While Indigenous people make up about 2 percent of Vancouver's population, 16 percent of those subjected to Vancouver street checks in 2017 were Indigenous. In 2017, the Edmonton Police Service filed 15,909 street check reports, a 30 percent reduction from 2016 which Police Chief Rod Knecht attributes in part to the carding controversy. In 2019, the University of Ottawa asserted that according to Policy 33, Members of Protection Services are authorized to request proof of identity from persons on campus. In 2020, Chief Mark Neufeld of the Calgary Police Service stated that even when there is no apparent evidence of a crime, stopping individuals and demanding personal information remains an important part of police work.
Criticism Opposition to carding is widespread, with testimony and a news organization investigation indicating that carding in Toronto primarily targets black and brown Canadians. The Law Union of Ontario submitted that carding implements a systematic violation of people's Charter rights, human rights, and privacy rights. The Office of the Ontario Ombudsman believes the practice of carding is illegal.
On November 18, 2013, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association denounced carding as "unlawful and unconstitutional" to the Toronto Police Services Board.
On January 13, 2014, the Ontario Human Rights Commission formally notified the Toronto Police Services Board that the practice of carding must be stopped.
On May 7, 2015, in Elmardy v. TPSB, Ontario Superior Court Justice Frederick Myers ruled "One who is not being investigated for criminality is allowed to walk down the street on a cold night with his or her hands in the pockets and to tell inquisitive police officers to get lost without being detained, searched, exposed to sub-zero temperatures, or assaulted."
On October 23, 2015, Ruth Goba, Interim Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Commission Rights Commission, stated that when Hamilton Police Chief De Caire requires police officers to be "stopping, talking and investigating young black males", the Hamilton Police Service is implementing a textbook description of racial profiling. On April 26, 2016, Hamilton Councillor Matthew Green, a public official in Hamilton opposed to police carding, was carded by the Hamilton Police Service.
After a fact finding mission in October 2016, the United Nations' Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent expressed concerns that racial profiling is endemic to carding strategies and practices used by Canadian law enforcement.
On November 8, 2016, Mike Ellis, MLA for Calgary-West, stated that carding violates Section 9 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
On January 9, 2017, Halifax Regional Police released statistics showing police were three times as likely to card blacks than whites. Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil responded, "I don't think it's acceptable anywhere. I think I was startled, like most Nova Scotians, by the stats that were brought out". Mayor Michael Savage said the numbers concerned him, and he would press the force to gather more information to determine why the checks were done and what police were looking for. In April 2017 the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission announced that it will lead an investigation into the practice of carding in Halifax.