TTC officers continued using the same Toronto Police Service contact cards as the force used to conduct “carding,” even after the police scrapped the forms over concerns about public accountability, an ongoing Star investigation has found.As the Star reported earlier, for years the TTC has quietly maintained a database containing the personal information of tens of thousands of transit users who have not been charged with an offence.Until about four years ago, TTC officers used official Toronto Police Service (TPS) “field information” cards known as “208” forms to collect riders’ details, which can include their name, address, driver’s licence number and race. The “208” forms were the same documents the TPS once used for its controversial street checks.But about six years ago, as public concern over police carding grew, police discontinued the “208” forms, and in July 2013 introduced a new form known as a “306.” The new version enabled officers to give the person they stopped a receipt that included the officer’s name and badge number.According to the force’s 2013 PACER report on police carding, the intention of the receipt was “to ensure officers are accountable to the public, to improve communication with the public about the reason for the stop, and to reduce the perceived power imbalance between the police and the community.” (The police service has since also discontinued the “306” form as it continues to modify its practices around carding.)However, even as the police shifted to the new form, the TTC continued to use the old “208,” which didn’t include a receipt.Read more:TTC officers have collected more than 40,000 records on riders who weren’t charged with an offence“We had a stockpile of these forms on hand and opted to use them while we developed our own,” said TTC spokesperson Stuart Green. He sugg ...
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