The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG), a manager of slots rooms and casinos, has announced it will install facial recognition systems in all 27 of its establishments in 2011, according to a CBC News article.

The project has received support from Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner as the primary purpose of the system is to help keep self-identified gambling addicts out of the casino by automatically recognizing them upon their entry and alerting security staff.

Enrollment in the system is voluntary and registered addicts attempting to gain access to the casino will be asked to leave or, if they refuse, issued a trespassing notice.

As far as assurances of public privacy as well as the privacy of the data of those enrolled in the system, OLG officials assure that no data collected through surveillance that doesn’t match an enrollee is kept and that an enrollee’s information is heavily encrypted so that it is useless outside of the facial recognition system.

Read the full story here.