Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today about the Government of Canada's commitment to both safeguarding the privacy of Canadians and working to continue to curb the spread of COVID‑19, thereby protecting everyone's health and safety.
The departmental officials kindly joining me today include Dr. Theresa Tam, who is the chief public health officer of Canada; Kathy Thompson, executive vice-president of the Public Health Agency of Canada; and Christopher Allison, acting vice-president, corporate data and surveillance branch of the Public Health Agency of Canada.
With lives on the line, the Government of Canada has always taken a range of actions to slow the spread of COVID-19, from implementing strict measures at the border to securing millions of vaccine doses to providing surge support to provinces and territories.
We have made and will continue to make informed decisions about policies and programs by reviewing information and analyzing all available data. By basing our decisions in this way on the best available evidence, expert advice and best practices abroad, we are better able to target our actions where they are most needed.
In the case of COVID‑19, reliable, timely and relevant public health data is informing our response to the pandemic and thus also protecting the health and safety of all citizens. The data we use comes from many sources. We are always looking for ways to leverage the most appropriate data to improve public health outcomes for Canadians.
The use of mobility data is not unique to Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. Governments around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, Germany, Argentina, Brazil and the Netherlands, to name a few, are using this data to guide their pandemic response efforts.
In addition, several reputable international organizations have described the social utility that mobility data can offer in response to the pandemic. These include the United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the European Commission's Joint Research Centre.
In March 2020, the Public Health Agency of Canada began using mobility data to provide outbreak information and guide our response to the pandemic. In partnership with the Communications Research Centre of the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, the agency used anonymized, de‑identified and aggregated location data from cell towers to support Canada's response to COVID‑19. This data was provided under a sole-source contract with the TELUS Data for Good program; the contract expired in October 2021.
The Public Health Agency of Canada also entered into a contract with BlueDot during the pandemic. This contract will expire on March 18, 2022.
On December 17, 2021, the Public Health Agency of Canada published a request for proposals on buyandsell.gc.ca, which opened a competitive process to continue this work.
I can assure all members of this committee that mobility data, both used and researched, is a valuable tool, which fully respects the privacy of all.
We also do not want to see any delays in the acquisition of this data, as this will and would impact the ongoing pandemic epidemiological monitoring activities. To be clear, the data sought [Technical difficulty—Editor] meet our requirements for aggregation, anonymity and privacy security and do not contain personal data that could identify individuals.
No personal data is obtained or provided.
This de-identified, anonymized, aggregated data is used to monitor the trajectory of the pandemic and how best to respond to it. This information helps governments at all levels determine how the public is responding to public health directives so that we can best tailor our approach and communications.
Mobility data allows us to examine—