PHAC

Public and Privacy Policy Implications of PHAC’s Use of Mobility Information

/ Christopher Parsons

Last week I appeared before the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics to testify about the public and private policy implications of PHAC’s use of mobility information since March 2020. I provided oral comments to the committee which were, substantially, a truncated version of the brief I submitted. If interested, my oral comments are available to download. What follows in this post is the content of the brief which was submitted.

Introduction

  1. I am a senior research associate at the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. My research explores the intersection of law, policy, and technology, and focuses on issues of national security, data security, and data privacy. While I submit these comments in a professional capacity they do not necessarily represent the full views of the Citizen Lab.
Continue reading →

Canadian Government’s Pandemic Data Collection Reveals Serious Privacy, Transparency, and Accountability Deficits

/ Christopher Parsons
faceless multiethnic students in masks in subway train with phone
Photo by Keira Burton on Pexels.com

Just before Christmas, Swikar Oli published an article in the National Post that discussed how the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) obtained aggregated and anonymized mobility data for 33 million Canadians. From the story, we learn that the contract was awarded in March to TELUS, and that PHAC used the mobility data to “understand possible links between movement of populations within Canada and spread of COVID-19.”

Around the same time as the article was published, PHAC posted a notice of tender to continue collecting aggregated and anonymized mobility data that is associated with Canadian cellular devices. The contract would remain in place for several years and be used to continue providing mobility-related intelligence to PHAC.

Separate from either of these means of collecting data, PHAC has been also purchasing mobility data “… from companies who specialize in producing anonymized and aggregated mobility data based on location-based services that are embedded into various third-party apps on personal devices.” There has, also, been little discussion of PHAC’s collection and use of data from these kinds of third-parties, which tend to be advertising and data surveillance companies that consumers have no idea are collecting, repackaging, and monetizing their personal information.

There are, at first glance, at least four major issues that arise out of how PHAC has obtained and can use the aggregated and anonymized information to which they have had, and plan to have, access.

Continue reading →