I'd like to start by thanking both the minister and my colleague from the Bloc, Mr. Villemure, for making it absolutely clear that the data that PHAC receives through its arrangements with BlueDot and Telus cannot be repersonalized, that the disaggregated, anonymized data that is received by the agency cannot identify the Canadians who are moving about their day throughout this pandemic.
That's a really important point. I want to thank the minister and my colleague for clarifying that to us in the committee room and to Canadians.
I'd like to talk about transparency, because that is something that my colleague Mr. Brassard raised and that there has been some confusion on. On March 23, 2020, the Prime Minister announced the BlueDot contract, and and then on March 26 Health Canada entered the contract with regard to anonymized, disaggregated data. On April 22, 2020, PHAC engaged the Office of the Privacy Commissioner as it moved forward with this useful tool in monitoring the pandemic and the movement of the pandemic throughout our communities.
On September 22, 2020, the privacy management division issued its analysis confirming that the data from both Telus Mobility and BlueDot is not considered personal information, and therefore does not engage the Privacy Act. Furthermore, Canadians were able to engage with Dr. Tam through the COVID tracker to know exactly what was being assessed for the safety and health of Canadians.
I can go on—into the record of January 25, 2021, when consultation was held with the public health and ethics group to assure yet again that the data that was utilized for the health assessments was anonymized and not personalized.
Minister, since there seems to be some confusion about how we engaged with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, and how the government moved forward in making sure that its contracts received data that was clear of any personalized information, could you maybe go a bit deeper into the details of the steps and the diligence taken by the ministry and by PHAC to ensure that the privacy of Canadians was ensured throughout this process?