{"id":232132,"date":"2026-04-07T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/07\/row-over-virtual-gated-community-ai-surveillance-plan-in-toronto-neighbourhood-ai-artificial-intelligence\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:10:10","slug":"row-over-virtual-gated-community-ai-surveillance-plan-in-toronto-neighbourhood-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/07\/row-over-virtual-gated-community-ai-surveillance-plan-in-toronto-neighbourhood-ai-artificial-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Row over \u2018virtual gated community\u2019 AI surveillance plan in Toronto neighbourhood | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Row over \u2018virtual gated community\u2019 AI surveillance plan in Toronto neighbourhood | AI (artificial intelligence)<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2026\/apr\/07\/toronto-rosedale-row-virtual-gated-community-ai-surveillance-flock<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-04-07 10:07:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n

A row has broken out in one of Canada\u2019s wealthiest neighbourhoods over plans to use an AI-powered surveillance system to create the country\u2019s first \u201cvirtual gated community\u201d to combat surging property crime.<\/p>\n

Crime rates in Toronto as a whole are dropping, but residents of Rosedale have been left on edge by a sustained rise in home invasions, with robbers targeting the tree-lined neighbourhood at a rate more than double the city average. Break-ins and theft remain the third highest per capita in Toronto.<\/p>\n

Growing unease is reflected in the community\u2019s WhatsApp group, where as many as 60 out of about 350 members are already contributing to fund private security.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friends experienced a horrific home invasion here in the community \u2013 their children were held at knifepoint, and they will be traumatised for the rest of their life. Other friends aren\u2019t sleeping well at night because they\u2019re anxious about the crime that\u2019s going to occur,\u201d said Craig Campbell, the Rosedale resident who proposed the plan. \u201cAlmost everyone knows someone who has been affected. Something has to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

In late March, residents attended a virtual meeting led by Campbell, who runs a security company. He outlined a plan in which an initial group of 100 residents would pay a C$200 (about \u00a3110) monthly subscription for technology which scans the licence plates of cars passing through the virtual \u201cgate\u201d. The US-based company Flock says the AI underpinning the technology can learn which cars belong to residents and which ones are suspicious.<\/p>\n

A rollout in the neighbourhood would mark Flock\u2019s entrance into the Canadian market.<\/p>\n

Campbell emphasised that the cameras did not use facial recognition, instead collecting licence plate data to create \u201cwhitelists\u201d (known) and \u201cblacklists\u201d (suspicious) of vehicles entering the neighbourhood. Data collected by the camera is retained for 30 days and police would only be able to access data with legal authorisation. The system…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Row over \u2018virtual gated community\u2019 AI surveillance plan in Toronto neighbourhood | AI (artificial intelligence)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":232133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/a7eb58e82cea42c2b6c2253ca1ead9ee4c9e83d7\/1562_0_3872_3098\/master\/3872.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&precrop=40:21,offset-x50,offset-y0&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=1cb054018dfec676f3e165c73ce1d480","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-232132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232132"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":232134,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232132\/revisions\/232134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}