Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2022

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

Dr. Tam, thank you for being here.

In my question for you, I will follow up on my line of questioning that the minister evaded. He did not tell me how many data points a day we would need from an average Canadian's cellphone in order to be effective. Mr. Green has asked a question as to whether or not there were any rubrics for the collection of this information to make it useful.

My question for you is, did the Public Health Agency of Canada buy information for which we didn't have any rubrics about how many times a day an individual's phone was pinged, having had no actual input into the scientific information-gathering process? Am I accurate in that statement?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Mr. Chair, again, I am not the person most intimately involved in this particular initiative. However, I know that because we've asked for de-identified and aggregated data, we do not get any information on pings at the Public Health Agency. I just wanted to clarify that, but in terms of the methodology and the analytics and the sensitivity, etc., of the efficacy of the data requirements, I'm going to have to direct that question to Mr. Allison, or we can follow up after this meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I'm going to have to suspend. We think we may have additional audio problems that may affect the recording of the meeting. The meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I'm not certain that our problems can be either properly identified or solved, and time is going by, so I'm going to continue with the meeting. We may have a problem with the evidence being recorded properly for the meeting, which I don't think we can resolve immediately. I'm going to continue.

Mr. Calkins, you're sharing your time with Mr. Kurek. He has a little under three minutes.

Go ahead.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Dr. Tam, thank you for being here. I'm curious about the data itself. We've heard a lot of talk about its being anonymized and de-identified and disaggregated, but I'm curious. On the data I've seen in terms of the BlueDot report, the information that's available publicly online, is that what the data looks like when PHAC receives it? Or is there more in-depth data that is provided to the Public Health Agency? Could you describe exactly what that data looks like?

[Dr. Theresa Tam]

Mr. Chair, may I pass this question on to Mr. Allison? I believe the data frame can be provided to this committee if they don't already have it, but it is very aggregated, like a health unit or a geographical area. I know that it's not even looking at numbers but rather proportions or percentages of shifts in mobility.

Could I pass this on to Mr. Allison, please?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead, Mr. Allison.

[Christopher Allison]

The data, as said, is de-identified and aggregated. I understand that it doesn't mean a lot in and of itself. The level to which it is de-identified and aggregated, though, is quite significant.

Effectively, for one data line, we have a table called “percentage time at primary location”. This basically represents the percentage of time that a cellular device will be at one place. Wherever it spends the most time is the primary location. The dataset would say a date—a single day—and would give a province, would give a health region, or potentially go down to a census subdivision, which is effectively a municipality, and then we get a percentage of time at that location.

For example, for Manitoba in a health region, you might have 91%. We would know that for the aggregate, for the time or the day—it's aggregated for an unspecified number of potential users within that health region—91% of the time that device stayed at its primary location. We would use that as a proxy for movement and adherence with public health measures.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Perhaps I could just dig a little deeper into that. The data sources outlined in the information provided to this committee from the parliamentary secretary talk about filters to exclude more than five unique devices, but also talk about devices being pinged entering or exiting the country, two devices within a household. It gets pretty specific. Forgive me, then, but with the type of data that's actually provided to PHAC versus the massive amount of information that exists with cellphone providers, there is a massive difference that may exist there, and Canadians are concerned about where that line is. I'm wondering if it would be possible for PHAC to provide some of those specifics so Canadians know exactly what that data looks like.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Go ahead with a brief answer, please.

[Christopher Allison]

I believe we can provide samples of that data to the committee that would help you understand and make your decisions.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

With that, we will go to Mr. Bains.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Before I begin, I want to thank Dr. Tam for being here, and obviously the minister before her. Thank you for your service and everything you've done during this very difficult time.

My question is probably best directed to Mr. Allison, and forgive me for oversimplifying. A lot of the technical questions have been addressed, and we're nearing the end here. I just want to compare this in a way to, say, something like Google Maps. When you open up your Google Maps—like probably every Canadian, 38 million of them—you look at your phone and it shows you where you are. I'm sure with every service provider—Rogers, Telus, Bell, whichever you have—when that dot appears, it is ultimately apparent where you are and where you're moving to.

If we look at that and we compare this information that's coming through, the mobility of Canadians, is it similar to that in some way?

[Christopher Allison]

Mr. Chair, the comparison between the de-identified aggregated data that PHAC receives and the amount of data that is being transmitted by mobile devices and used by both applications and telcos is like a bucket or even a drop compared to the ocean, effectively. When we're looking at Google Maps.... There are public goods. When I go out, I use it and I consent to my data being used so that I can understand when I show up at the pool with my kids, we can get in. That's one of the social goods that is looked at with this data. The trick really is maintaining the privacy and security of folks while we're doing it.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Again, I know that a member before talked about ones and zeros, and said it's very easy deleting this and that. Forgive me: I'm not under 35, so I don't know what that was all about. Say, you look at the opting out, and again, I refer back to Google Maps. It has those questions on there. Do you want this mobility to be followed? I just say no. Every application we have on our phone asks us questions. Do you want the “speaker” feature to access your phone? Do you want the “photo” feature to be accessed on your phone? For someone like me, I don't engage in too many applications, but I still have a lot of them—the “calendar” feature or the so and so feature. When you look at all of those things and all of these applications, you see that they all have that opt-out feature.

I just want to go back to that and ask, is it as simple as that to opt out of this feature? I'm just relating it to, basically, what Canadians are engaging in every day. Millions and millions of Canadians are engaging with all these applications on a daily basis. What's the difference here, really?

I go back to you again, Mr. Allison. Thank you.

[Christopher Allison]

Mr. Chair, I think that's an accurate description. Each of the applications now—because of the changes to operating systems, both Apple and android—requires opt-ins for a large number of the uses, including, usually, mobility data. BlueDot also has an internal process in place whereby it will only provide data to us if a device has appeared over five consecutive days. That also prevents somebody signing in once, getting a ping, and then that making it into the data that's permitted for use in the reports.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

How much time do I have?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Mr. Kurek got an extra minute, so you can have an extra minute, too. Go ahead, if you'd like.

[Parm Bains, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Actually, I don't have much more than that.

I want to mention that I thought it was very clear, with the minister's answers to the questions, in terms of initially what the information is being used for and how critical it is. It was very clear that it was already publicly available for so long. I just want to thank the minister for clarifying those points.

Other than that, I don't have any more, so back to you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you. You used most of that or a good chunk of the extra minute, so we'll carry on and go to Monsieur Villemure for two and a half minutes.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would just like to say to Mr. Bains that the minister has answered these questions with less than perfect clarity.

Mr. Allison, as I understand it, there was an analysis done with respect to the need to balance public health needs, which are clear, with privacy. At some point, these two elements were weighed. What were the criteria that led to the choices that were made as a result of that exercise?

[Christopher Allison]

It's pretty fair to say that the focus of the Public Health Agency of Canada is to protect the health of Canadians, but that can never be done while sacrificing privacy or sacrificing the rights of our citizens. In everything I've seen with my teams and the teams of people putting together the RFP, making sure the privacy of Canadians is an utmost priority is key.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much.

Does this mean that you followed the law and went beyond the requirements? What were the criteria and how many were there?

[Christopher Allison]

Mr. Chair, may I ask a question? Criteria in regard to what?