FLAIME is an artificial intelligence system developed by Health Canada to monitor the food environment by collecting and analyzing publicly available food product information from the internet. The system gathers data about food products, nutrition facts tables, and ingredient lists, then uses machine learning to automatically classify this information and generate reports that help Health Canada understand trends and patterns in the food marketplace.
This system does not collect or process personal information about individuals. Instead, it focuses on analyzing publicly available product data to support evidence-based decision-making in food policy and regulation. The system is currently in production and is used by Government of Canada employees to monitor food labeling practices and nutritional information across the marketplace.
The system uses optical character recognition technology to read food labels and automated data classification to organize the collected information into structured databases. This enables Health Canada to maintain a comprehensive understanding of food products available to Canadian consumers without processing any personal data.
