Thank you, Minister Duclos, for being here today. I want to say right off the top that we're here today, not because we don't believe that data is important, and that evidence-based data is important, to manage the pandemic. Every one of us around the table understands that information is important. We're here today because of an RFP that was produced by, as the minister said.... It was put out in December and brought to light the fact that the mobility data of Canadians was being collected, as the minister said, since March of 2020.
Now, let me tell you what this is about, and I'll ask the minister a question in a second.
This is about the fact that it was being done without the knowledge and without the consent of Canadians. That's what's so alarming about this. The other thing is that staff at the Privacy Commissioner's office—and I know that there have been, on a couple of occasions, pieces of information that are contrary or contradictory to each other—said that they had not been contacted about this practice being done, so there are conflicting reports on that.
Now, you can speak to anonymized and aggregated data all you want, but there are security and privacy experts, Mr. Chair, who have expressed sincere concern about the security measures and the protocols that were put in place in order to protect the privacy of Canadians and ensure that it isn't compromised. We are going to hear from experts as we move further into the study, who are going to talk to us about how easy it is to re-identify or de-identify that data for commercial purposes.
My question to the minister is this: Does he not understand the concern that has come to light as a result of this?