Hamilton police street checks linked to carding by Toronto report

Hamilton Police have told anti-racism advocates they don't engage in the controversial "carding" practice under fire in Toronto, but the "street safety checks"they do use appeartoadd up to the same thing, according to an internal Toronto Policereport.

A2012 report by the now-chief of the Toronto Police Service said Toronto's "carding"looked like what surrounding police departments in Ontario Peel, York, Durham and Ottawa called"street checks".

All refer to their carding practices as 'street checks.'- Toronto Police report

"These agencies used carding practices very similar to that currently used by the Toronto Police," the report found.

The four"all refer to their carding practices as 'street checks,'" the report states. The report was released aspart of a Toronto Star investigation last week. Hamilton Police Service is not specifically referenced in the report.

The "street safety checks" in Hamilton comprise"written information officers may record in an interaction with community members on thestreet,"according to the service's community relations coordinator, Sandra Wilson.

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Hamilton Police have also said in recent months theirACTION team hasgathered 305,000 "community contacts" since 2010. They say they use proactive policing tactics that sometimes mean questioning and asking for ID from people who are not under investigation for a crime.

Hamilton Police did not respond to a request for comment Thursday on the link drawn in the report between "carding" and "street checks," nor for comment onhow its practice is similar or different to Toronto's approach.

Meanwhile, the "carding"issue is generating controversy and discussion about racial profiling and privacy rights in the nation's largest city.

'Not comfortable with the term "carding"'

Earlier this spring, Wilson told the advocates that the Hamilton Police "do not and have never practice carding," according to Ismael Traore, a sociologist at McMaster University who has been meeting with the police on this and other racial issues.

"Right now, Sandra Wilson is not comfortable with the term 'carding'," said Gary Fondevilla, a nurse who chairs theanti-racism group called Black, Brown Red Lives Matter. "That's not a term, at least, used in the Hamilton Police Service."

The "carding" practice has been heating up in Toronto, where Wednesday a group of high-profile Toronto figures, including three former mayors, called for an end to the practice.Last week, the deputy leader for the provincial NDP said he wants to the province to enact legislation to prevent police across the province from detaining and stopping peoplearbitrarily.

"The stopping of law-abiding citizens who are just going about their daily lives is, in my view, in violation of the Charter of Rights and the Human Rights Code," saidformer Ontario chief justice and attorney generalRoyMcMurtry.

In Hamilton, Wilson has said the"Hamilton Police Service is not engaged in any way in therandomstopping and collecting of information from our citizens."

But the service has acknowledged that they stop and ask people on the street for information about where they're going, their name, where they live and in some cases for identification, even in cases where someone is not involved in an investigation or witness to a crime. In some cases, they retain that information in the service's database.

'Highly beneficial information' for policing

The practice of stopping and asking for identification even when someone is not accused of a crime and then recording that information on a contact card, or "carding" has been under fire for years in Toronto for what opponents call adisproportionate impact on visible minorities.

The Hamilton Police don't collect racial details in their interactions that would allow for an analysis about the rates of who's stopped, but have said they'll consider it. Theyadded language to a brochure and aniPhoneapp earlier this yearto emphasize that citizens have the right to walk away from a police officer when they're not under investigation.

The 2012 Saunders report notes that the police services all train their officers in human rights law and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

And all of them said that "the information captured through street check submissions provide highly beneficial information for police during a wide range of investigations."

Fondevilla plans to speak at the next Police Services Board tolearn more about efforts to combat racial bias in policing and to push for more public education campaigns around individuals' interaction with the police. The group has asked for definitions of policing terms and practices.

"It's a bit of a waiting game, to see how Sandra (Wilson)is going to define these things," Fondevilla said.

kelly.bennett@cbc.ca| @kellyrbennett