Toronto to consider investing in ‘ShotSpotter’

Just two days after a gunman killed two people and injured 13 in Toronto’s Greektown neighbourhood, city council is set to make a decision Tuesday on whether to invest in technology that claims to be able to tip police off to shootings less than a minute after shots are fired.

ShotSpotter is billed as a speedier way to narrow down the location of a suspected shooting by essentially listening in for suspected gunfire around town, and then alerting police as to where it may be coming from. The system aims to do so based on the time it takes for a gunshot (or gunshot-like) noise to hit microphones that would be set up around parts of the city.

According to the website of California-based ShotSpotter Inc., the system involves “gunshot detection technology that uses sophisticated acoustic sensors to detect, locate and alert law enforcement agencies and security personnel about illegal gunfire incidents in real time.”

If prompted, ShotSpotter says an alert would be registered at the firm’s “Incident Review Centre,” where employees would analyze the situation and digitally alert police.

Mayor John Tory has already backed use of the ShotSpotter, but the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has raised concerns.

Tory sent a letter to the Toronto Police Services Board dated July 19 recommending the number of closed-circuit TV cameras be increased to 74 from 34. In the same letter, he suggested the city install ShotSpotter.

But CCLA sent a letter to the mayor before the deadly shooting that said the group had “serious concerns regarding the impact of new police surveillance technologies for the city of Toronto.”

“It is thus entirely untested in relation to its privacy impacts, its potential use as a tool with evidentiary value in our Canadian courts, or the constitutionality of its use more generally,” CCLA said.