TTC officers stop using police-style contact cards

But riders’ personal information will still be collected and stored

The head of the TTC has ordered its enforcement unit to stop using specialized forms to collect private information from transit users following a Star investigation into the practice — but he said fare inspectors and enforcement officers will still collect the personal information in their notebooks.

The move failed to appease some critics, who say the practice of collecting riders’ personal details raises concerns over privacy violations and racial profiling.

In an interview, chief executive officer Rick Leary indicated his primary concern was the forms’ similarity to cards the Toronto Police Service formerly used to conduct controversial street checks, often referred to as carding.

Leary said he made the decision Wednesday to suspend the use of the TTC’s “field information” cards, also known as 718 forms, after discussing the issue with Toronto police Chief Mark Saunders.

“The TTC is going to discontinue as of now using that form,” Leary said.

“The similarity of the form is what’s the concern … We don’t do carding, we don’t do random checks. It’s the form itself. The information is necessary to collect. But if the form is a concern then we change the form. That’s what the chief and I had the discussion about.”

Leary said he had asked the TTC’s diversity inclusion group to conduct an “expedited” review of the form and what information is collected on it, and to come up with a new version. He didn’t specify all the aspects the review would cover, but said it would address concerns including the 20-year period during which the TTC retains riders’ information, a policy that privacy experts have criticized as excessive. There was no timeline for when the review will be complete.

Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association’s equality project, said suspending the use of the form doesn’t get at the root of the problem.

“The problem is the unjustified violation of people’s privacy and equality rights over a $3 (or other minor) infraction, if at all,” she said in an email. “The problems are that they are collecting personal information; that they are doing so in ways that are grossly disproportionate; that they are holding on to this personal information for 20 years; that most of these privacy violations occur because of possible fare evasion; and that the biggest targets for these violations are racialized and marginalized individuals.”

Councillor Shelley Carroll (Ward 17, Don Valley North), who sits on the TTC board, said suspending the use of the forms is “an important first step,” but doesn’t go far enough. She said she plans to introduce a motion at the board’s April 11 meeting for a full report on how the TTC collects riders’ private information.

She said she was concerned the practice had “just evolved over time” without sufficient oversight and that, as the agency hires more officers to crack down on fare evasion, it’s vital that the transit agency and board “build accountability into that enforcement.”

“What concerns me is we’ve grown our enforcement strength quite a bit in the last few years. Do we really know what the policies and procedures are around the retention of people’s personal information?” she said.

The TTC says it only docu- ments riders’ personal details when transit officers believe they committed an offence such as fare evasion or “misconduct,” but decide to issue a warning instead of a ticket. The person’s details go into a database that officers can check to determine whether someone they stop for an offence has been stopped before.

Leary said this was a “fair process” that allows for a “graduated system of enforcement.” He said the TTC’s documentation of transit users was not the same as police “carding,” because the agency’s officers only take information from people they believe have committed an offence. The term “carding” has been commonly used to describe police documenting interactions with community members who aren’t necessarily suspected of a crime.

However, privacy and civil rights experts have questioned whether the TTC should be collecting and retaining riders’ personal information for something as minor as skipping out on a $3 fare, unless it’s for the purpose of issuing a ticket and enforcing payment. Customers who are documented by the TTC are given no official record of the interaction, making it difficult for riders to know what information is being kept on them or to identify the officer who stopped them should they wish to complain.

A Star analysis of more than 40,000 entries recorded on the field information cards over 11 years shows that Black riders were documented in disproportionately high numbers compared to other groups.

The TTC used to use the same so-called “208” forms the Toronto Police Service employed in the police force’s controversial street checks, often referred to as carding. Amid public concern over carding disproportionately affecting racialized communities, the police replaced the “208” forms in 2013, but the TTC continued to use them.

The transit agency’s own “718” forms — the version that has now been suspended — were introduced around 2015, but they remained substantially similar to the police version that the force had scrapped.

There are two types of officers in the TTC’s enforcement unit that interact with the public: fare inspectors, and transit enforcement officers.

Enforcement officers are designated special constables through an agreement with the Toronto Police Services Board, and have limited police powers on the transit system.

The TTC confirmed that its enforcement officers continued to use the 208 forms, which bear the TPS logo, during a period when they had been stripped of their special constable status. The police board revoked the agreement effective in 2011 over concerns that transit officers were overstepping their authority, before reinstating it in 2014. The transit agency said fare inspectors, a new position introduced in 2014, may have also used the police forms, even though they were never special constables. TTC spokesperson Stuart Green stressed that the agency used the forms differently than the police. “The TTC has never conducted, nor does it conduct, random stops and checks of anyone,” he said.