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Council approved a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) policy during its Jan. 27 regular council meeting. The policy establishes clear rules and guiding principles for how AI can be used by City of Cold Lake employees, ensuring personal and organizational information remains protected while allowing staff to benefit from the efficiencies technology can provide, according to the City of Cold Lake.
Kristy Isert, the City of Cold Lake’s general manager of Corporate Services, told council the policy was developed in response to the rapid expansion of AI across common workplace platforms.
“At the last Corporate Priorities Committee, administration presented a draft artificial intelligence policy which is intended to govern the use of AI by city staff,” she said.
Rather than approving or banning specific technologies, the policy focuses on creating a decision-making framework that employees must consider before using AI in their work.
“The intent of the policy is to find the right balance between responsible use of technology that allows us to create efficiencies within the workplace, while still protecting the private and personal information that we have collected from members of the public and the community.”
Isert explained the document outlines both permitted and non-permitted uses, helping clarify what is acceptable as AI becomes more prevalent in tools such as Microsoft, Adobe, and online research platforms.
Isert said the policy aims to avoid restrictions on specific technologies or applications. Instead, the policy is designed to provide a guiding framework that requires staff to consider key principles before using AI in the workplace.
The policy acknowledges that artificial intelligence is already embedded in many everyday workplace tools, even though the City is not intentionally rolling out new AI systems, added Isert.
“There are already instances where AI is integrated within software (for example Microsoft CoPilot, Adobe AI features, and Google AI search results),” she said, adding, “It is not a situation where at this time we are intentionally implementing AI.”
Instead, Isert said the policy is about providing clarity for staff, noting that “AI is here, we can’t prevent its use in many of the integrated applications, so we need to be clear with staff about what is required principles for consideration before using AI.”
She added that the policy “includes the rules,” and is meant to ensure staff apply consistent judgment, as “the intention is to establish principles that are considered in each situation to determine if AI use is appropriate,” while also identifying cases “where it is not allowed.”
To support that approach, Isert said staff already receive training on privacy legislation and their duty to protect personal information, and that “training for the AI policy is being developed internally and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.”
No generating images of people allowed
One change to the policy was made following discussion at the Jan. 20 Corporate Priorities Committee meeting. Administration revised wording related to image generation, to reduce confusion.
The amendment narrowed the restriction to images of people, rather than restricting all image generation.
“Instead of just saying generating photos, images, or videos, it says generating photos, images, or videos of people.” Isert said the clarification was intentional to ensure appropriate safeguards without unnecessarily limiting legitimate uses of the technology.
“The intent there is that we wanted to create greater specifications around one of the non-permitted uses of AI, and that’s that generating photos of people primarily – not images of buildings or utilizing technology to create some other inanimate object.”
During the discussion, Deputy Mayor Bill Parker raised the importance of education alongside implementation.
“We’re making an additional request that once you get it up and going, you put a training program on for some of us,” he said.
Isert confirmed that training is already underway and could extend beyond municipal staff.
Council unanimously made a motion to approve the policy.
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