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09 June 2026•Update: 09 June 2026
The Canadian government is piloting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in drafting criminal profile reports for federal inmates, a move that is drawing sharp criticism, according to a report on Monday.
The "small-scale trial," confirmed by Correctional Service Canada (CSC) and referenced in documents tabled in parliament, is aimed at helping staff process large volumes of information during inmate intake, the Toronto Star report said.
The CSC told the media outlet that the tool is being tested to see whether AI can help organize and review existing documents more efficiently when preparing criminal profile reports while maintaining human oversight.
"The focus is on helping staff with time-intensive document review, analysis and information extraction from source materials used to prepare the criminal profile," said CSC spokesperson Esther Mailhot, adding that the system "has not been used in any operational setting."
She also said the evaluation is expected to be completed by the end of June, and no final decision has been made.
The report noted that the pilot was carried out under a $123,000 contract with consulting firm Accenture, using anonymized or synthetic data as part of a test environment.
However, experts and legal advocates raised concerns about the risks of relying on AI in sensitive correctional assessments.
Jennifer Evans, principal at PatternPulse AI, warned that AI errors in this context carry serious consequences.
"Errors are hard to detect, and they propagate, and unless you do have somebody paying very close attention to the accuracy of each individual record, you're not going to know if it was conducted properly or not, and that almost obviates the utility of the software itself in this particular use case," she said.
She added: "There is no dispensing with that. No amount of training, no amount of what people will call better data, will ever erase the issues of hallucination."
Evans also warned that detecting such errors could require significant human oversight, potentially offsetting any efficiency gains.
New Democratic Party lawmaker Jenny Kwan also urged caution, calling for wider consultation before expanding the technology’s use in correctional settings, according to the report.
Howard Sapers of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association warned that outdated or incorrect records could be replicated by AI systems, potentially affecting parole and classification decisions.
