Thank you, Ms. Saks, for not only a great question but a great summary of the situation, which I believe will serve to assure and reassure everyone in the committee and anyone else listening and watching us today about the use and the usefulness of those data.
On the link to the Privacy Commissioner, the Privacy Commissioner and his office have an incredibly important job to do in the Government of Canada. Their advice, their input and their guidance are key to everything we do, including through a pandemic. A crisis is no excuse for not protecting the privacy of Canadians. That's why we've done that since the start and will continue to do that as we keep fighting the virus.
As you alluded to, PHAC was engaged from the very start with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, immediately in April and biweekly thereafter. There was also a process in the Government of Canada to assess whether the information that was being gathered was subject to privacy laws. The determination was made that it was not subject to the Privacy Act. Therefore, the work continued, using, as you mentioned, disaggregated, de-identified and anonymized data.
We will continue to work with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner as we proceed through the crisis. As I have said, protecting the privacy of Canadians is an absolute key priority. Whatever we do must fulfill that obligation.