Calgary police officers are no longer required to provide their name in public as part of a pilot project aimed at protecting them from so-called doxing instances.
Doxing is the practice of maliciously publishing private or identifying information about someone online without their consent.
The Calgary Police Service (CPS) announced the pilot project on April 2, saying in a social media post there has been a “growing trend” of doxing targeting local police, and officers across the country.
The information you need to know, sent directly to you: Download the CTV News App
Speaking in a Tuesday interview with Jefferson Humphreys on CTV Morning Live, Calgary police chief Mark Neufeld confirmed that officers in Calgary are “being exposed to online harms” more often than they used to be.
“We’re not going to let that happen,” he said.
“Some of this goes back to an increased number of protests and demonstrations where our people are policing and attending, and a small number of people who are actually using those environments to film the officers and get their names …. Then going online and social media platforms and trying to identify home addresses or phone numbers or family or colleagues or whatever.”
Prior to the pilot project, officers had their name and regimental (badge) number on their uniform.
Now, officers in certain specialty units will only be required to wear their regimental number.
Officers are also allowed to verbally identify themselves by their name or regimental number.
Previously, officers were required to provide their name, regimental number and rank.
“For most of the interactions that happen around the city, it will be business as usual,” said Neufeld, who noted that in most circumstances, officers will be “more than happy” to give out their name and rank when asked.
“We’re absolutely committed to transparency and good service with the public, but we know that there’s a few places where we’re putting officers that this is happening, and so we’re going to try and see if we can nip this in the bud.”
Neufeld says if members of the public wish to lodge a complaint against an officer, the process to do so will remain the same, because they will still be able to identify them even if all they have is a regimental number, not a name.
“Within the service, with a surname, there will be multiple people with the same surname, so the regimental number is a unique fier that will allow people to do that – if they want to make a complaint or a compliment,” he said.
He said they’ll be monitoring the pilot project throughout its run.
“If we’re seeing issues, we’ll adjust to them – and if we’re seeing that this is working, we may actually expand it if we need to.”
