Dr. Martin French at the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee

On February 10th, 2022. See this statement in context.

February 10th, 2022 / 5:25 p.m.

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual

I'm not sure how to answer that question. It is a great and a big question, but I'm not sure how to answer it.

I suppose we could hold the FluWatchers program, for example, which is an opt-in initiative side by side with mobility tracking, which is opt-out. I know that Dr. Tam said they give very different data.

I recognize that the Public Health Agency of Canada needs and sees a value in mobility data. I'm coming at this not as a public health professional but as a sociologist, so I also recognize that I have limitations in my kind of position. I want to make that clear.

I think that these are two different approaches to consent and from a privacy perspective, I would tend to favour an opt-in approach like FluWatchers.

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