During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of Canada and other government around the world used technology to help them make public health decisions.

One such use of technology was by The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) which used mobility data to assess population mobility patterns during the pandemic. On 17 December 2021, a tender was issued to allow PHAC to continue to have access to this type of data. It is in this context that the Committee sought to undertake a study on the collection and use of mobility data by the Government of Canada.

Government officials said that the use of mobility data respected privacy rights since the data was de-identified and aggregated and used to track the correlation between the spread of COVID-19 and population movement. They indicated that it was impossible to re-identify individuals with the data received. They also said that they were transparent, for example by making information about mobility data publicly available on the COVIDTrends webpage.

Companies that provided PHAC with access to mobility data reassured the Committee that no data identifying an individual was shared with government. They said that they use the best industry standards to share de-identified data responsibly.

Other witnesses agreed that based on the publicly available evidence on the PHAC case, it did not appear that the government had used anything other than properly de-identified data to assess mobility patterns.

Although there was wide consensus among witnesses that the use of mobility data for public health purposes was laudable, several witnesses did not believe that PHAC was sufficiently transparent.

One expert explained that there are reliable techniques to de-identify or anonymize data so that the risk of re-identification is very low. Some privacy experts noted that, since the risk of re-identification is never zero, de-identified data should fall within the scope of federal privacy laws.

Some witnesses highlighted the challenges of using mobility data and big data. They also discussed the social impacts that surveillance can have.

Finally, most witnesses agreed that federal privacy laws are in dire need of modernization.

In light of what the Committee heard, it makes several recommendations to ensure that there is an appropriate legal framework for data use in Canada.