Of the dozens—which include the RCMP, Regina, Cornwall, London and the Via Rail Police Service—nine originally said they hadn’t used the technology, whose database is scraped in large part from billions of social media profiles. In addition, several U.S. private businesses copped to using the technology. The New York-based company recently suffered a data breach of its entire client list, which showed that Canadian entities were Clearview’s biggest clients outside of the U.S. (Toronto Star, BuzzFeed News)

Talking point: Clearview’s sudden ubiquity—over 2,000 institutions in 27 countries have used it—is an example of how technology has again outpaced the legislation designed to frame it. Several privacy experts have questioned its legality in Canada, and the federal privacy commissioner recently launched an investigation into the company, along with its homologues in Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. Among the private businesses in Canada using the software was pharmacy chain Rexall, which procured a trial version of the software for its loss-prevention unit.