Toronto Police: From Pandemic Spying to Overpolicing
policePandemic Database Abuse
Toronto Police accessed the provincial health database containing private information of over 22,000 patients 22,000 times during the pandemic.
No warrants were issued. No consent was given. No accountability for this grievous breach of privacy.
What Database Was This?
It contained the names, addresses, and health status of thousands of people.
It was exclusively for public health officials.
TPS Broke the Law
The Ontario Privacy Commissioner ruled that TPS violated privacy laws.
However, no officers were disciplined or charged. Leadership was not reprimanded. Most disturbingly, there is no record of what was done with the data.
Using COVID as a Policing Tool
During the pandemic, TPS aggressively ticketed “COVID violations.”
This is especially true in racialized and low-income communities.
Testing the Surveillance State
COVID policing was a testing ground for expanded powers:
- Increased surveillance
- More fines and enforcement
- Expanded data-sharing
Ticketing and Overpolicing Persist
The surge in ticketing and policing in public spaces, transit, and parks has continued unabated even after the pandemic.
TPS Budget Is Massive
Toronto Police receive over $1.2 billion annually — a figure that exceeds the combined budgets of libraries, shelters, and public transit.
Policing as Revenue Generation
The city funds policing by relying on fines and tickets — especially on unhoused, racialized, and poor communities.
TTC Policing as Control
Transit riders face high fines for fare evasion — up to $235.
TPS's presence on the TTC targets marginalized riders, treating transit like a carceral hunting ground.
Seasonal Escalation
TPS increases bike patrols, plainclothes cops, and street sweeps every summer — disproportionately targeting Black, Indigenous, unhoused, and disabled people.
Policing Protects Property, Punishes Poverty
This isn’t a failing system — it’s working as designed: enforcing inequality and extracting wealth from those with the least.
The Cycle of Criminalization
State neglect → Crisis → Policing and surveillance → Fines and arrests → Poverty → Repeat.
Abolition Means Breaking the Cycle
We don’t want reform.
We want abolition and total dismantlement of policing — to instead invest in community care, housing, and healthcare.
If you follow this page, you’ve seen it: people shoved out of tents, brutalized by cops for surviving, protesters harassed, surveilled, and assaulted, and social services torn apart by Doug Ford’s austerity.
During COVID, Toronto Police accessed the provincial COVID-19 database more than 22,000 times, illegally spying on people’s private health info without consent or warrants.
But it wasn’t just TPS. Across Ontario, police services searched the database over 96,000 times during the pandemic, including regional forces like Thunder Bay and Durham.
The Ontario government finally revoked police access in August 2020…but not before cops weaponized this private info to surveil and punish Black, Indigenous, unhoused, and poor communities.
What police did with the data remains secret and there has been zero accountability.
Now, TPS and other forces keep policing, ticketing, and attacking marginalized communities, squeezing money from those struggling the most.
This system isn’t broken - it’s working exactly as designed: to control, criminalize, and crush marginalized people.
Radical community care is the only path to liberation. Not reform, not more cops.
We have to dismantle policing and build support networks that actually heal and protect our communities. Fuck the police. Defund. Abolish. Build.
Sources
- CBC News, “Toronto police broke privacy law accessing COVID data” (2023)
- Toronto Star, “TPS accessed COVID data illegally over 22,000 times”
- Ontario Privacy Commissioner reports
- Toronto Police Service Budget (2020–2024)
- Canadian Civil Liberties Association, “Policing the Pandemic”
- Pivot Legal Society pandemic surveillance analysis
- TTC Fare Enforcement and Policing reports
Blogs
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