I think this is one of the most interesting contradictions or paradoxes of government right now, this notion of privacy protection and the idea of using information only for the reason it's collected.... Let's be clear, that contradicts a lot of what governments are promising to achieve with respect to more citizen-centric, more integrated service models. So there is that contradiction there.
Certainly David Eaves could speak about Estonia much better than I can, but prior to this committee I was looking at some of the data governance work that's been done by the Government of Australia over the past year. They're currently preparing a new legislative framework to address your question. They put out a thought-piece late last year talking about data sharing and reusability within the public sector, how that could work and how to make that work essentially with a privacy framework that recognizes the need for limitations and transparency.
To be very concrete, probably in the short to medium term at least, there will need to be an opt-out clause in order for people to feel they're not participating. I'll give you two examples, one in B.C. several years ago, when they introduced the new integrated services card that brought together the driver's licence and the health care card. Working with the privacy commissioner in that province, the decision was made to allow citizens who weren't comfortable with that integration to opt out. I believe a small minority chose to do so, and that continues to this day.
The second example is with respect to digital health and the new health agency that's created now in Australia to create a health record for every citizen. There, too, very clearly, there is an opt-out clause that allows individuals to have their digital record removed from the system. I don't know whether they do it themselves or whether they sign in and make a request. I suspect it will have to be a tiered approach where we create these new models, but there will be some opt-out.
Finally, I would go back to what I said earlier about your committee's work and the need to have a wider public conversation about what level of comfort citizens have in data sharing, and also bringing citizens more into the conversation, having perhaps citizens' advisory panels, citizens' oversight committees, to provide tangible input in understanding the trade-offs and the solutions going forward.