Evidence of meeting #6 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was use.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
All right. Thank you. That sounds good.
We'll move on. We are going to end up going over time even with the second round.
My proposal is that I'm going to go with four minutes each for MPs Patzer and Bains, two minutes each for MPs Villemure and Green, and then just a one-minute question each from MPs Soroka and Khalid. That will take us to about five minutes over time.
If that's roughly acceptable, I'm going to proceed with that right now and go to Mr. Patzer for four minutes.
February 10th, 2022 / 5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. French, I serve a very large rural riding, and I think there's been a lot of concern from residents' being harassed by the government. They already live out in a rural area, are basically isolating by default and have been harassed about that.
When you look at the de-identified data, how much easier is it to reidentify data of people living in rural areas compared to somebody who lives in a massive urban centre?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
I don't think I have anything to add to this beyond what we heard from Dr. Cavoukian and Dr. Scassa today. I think it is the case that, the smaller the population, the greater the risk of identification in any kind of dataset, probably, but I'm not an expert on de-identification and reidentification.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
In an article in the National Post, you mentioned some populations that could experience an intensification of tracking that could have harmful repercussions. I'm wondering if you could provide some context around that or a few comments there.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
Sure, I'll try. It was in a bigger email response that the statement was highlighted in. I was talking about what I think I've mentioned in my comments today, this possibility of other organizations using mobility data to guide their activities. It's not something that we know a lot about, but these data leakages, let's say, do happen from time to time.
I was simply trying to point to the fact that sometimes this mobility data can be used by organizations, like Dr. Tam said, to make recommendations or identify problems like people not obeying lockdown regulations or curfew.
My question is: What happens after that recommendation is made? Do we see an intensification of enforcement? If we do see intensification, does that potentially fall on communities that are dealing with other issues? Maybe they're doing shift work or what have you.
I'm not sure if I'm being clear in my answer, but—
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
That's helpful, so I appreciate that.
I only have about 30 seconds left, so I have a quick question for Mr. Weinstock.
I have a lot of constituents who are understandably angry and frustrated about basically having been spied on or surveilled and the data they're generating being used against them by the government. I'm wondering if there's a philosophical or an ethical argument there.
Full Professor, Department of Philosophy, McGill University, As an Individual
I think that there are important uses that could be made of data that, in other circumstances than that of a pandemic, we would expect to be private. Publicity on the ends to which this data is being placed, the limits on the use of the data, like temporal limits—when we are going to stop doing it, what the indicator is with respect to the pandemic that is going to make us say we're no longer in an emergency situation that justifies this extraordinary use of data—would go a long way in reducing some of that uncertainty.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Thank you, Dr. Weinstock.
We will go to Mr. Bains for four minutes.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you.
Thank you to both doctors for taking some time to join us today.
My question is directed to Dr. French.
You talked earlier about terms of reference, and we know that the de-identified mobility movements have an opt-out feature. In your mind, looking at government and these companies working together in the future, what can we do to look at those terms? You mentioned that the public doesn't really look at the terms of reference.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
Thank you for the question. I guess a brief answer would be a twofold answer.
There is a lot of work to do to educate people about data flows that are related to their use of mobile telephony. That is one thing. I would tend to like to see an opt-in approach rather than an opt-out approach, but I know that also has costs in terms of uptake, in terms of implementation. I think that's a debate but I would like to see an opt-in orientation.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Right, but if we were to have an opt-in feature, doesn't that speak to the usefulness of the actual mobility movements? In this nature of the pandemic and working toward the public good, does the opt-in feature then just ultimately make this a not-so-useful exercise?
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.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
I'll just say thank you for joining us, and I'll leave it at that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
We thank you, Mr. Bains, for keeping us on time.
Mr. Villemure, you have two minutes.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Weinstock, I had a revelation earlier, thanks to you. I am assuming nothing, by the way. I am not assuming that there was bad faith or ill intention. My thinking was that it was difficult to strike a balance between protecting privacy and public health. You raised another point, though, and it made me wonder whether, at the end of the day, the difficult balance to strike was actually between partisan reflexes and public health.
I'd like to hear your opinion on that.
Full Professor, Department of Philosophy, McGill University, As an Individual
I believe that the first balancing act is still very important.
To pick up on the discussion between Mr. Bains and Mr. French, I think one of the things that makes the current situation really difficult is that the end goal of ensuring public health, which is assisted by data collection, can only be met if the vast majority of the population is enrolled in some way. That makes individual consent and the opt‑in approach difficult. The balance is even more fragile when something like the opt‑in approach serves the public good.
Concerning partisanship, we live in a political system where elections are held every four years. I think it would be nearly impossible to prevent politicians from looking at the election calendar and measuring their actions in part on that basis.
I would say that they sometimes miscalculate. In prolonged emergency situations—and I consider two years to be prolonged—people expect politicians to rise above partisan politics. Sometimes, actions that can be perceived as savvy political moves have a tendency to alienate the public's trust. I don't know whether what I said was clear.
Conservative
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Mr. Chair, I'm going to try this again through you to Dr. French.
When I was talking a bit about the digital epidemiology and the use of data generated outside of our public health systems, I referenced social media. The reason I did that is because I'm looking for—in his opinion—where our limit should be. Right now, it's cellphone mobility data, but technologies are available with AI for the mass surveillance of public information. When that happens, I would argue that the use of social media raises ethical and legal considerations, including the de-identification of data and consent to its use.
Broadly speaking, just how far should the government go in the name of public health surveillance? In your opinion, where should it stop?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
This a debate that is happening in public health and beyond public health. In 2020, colleagues and I wrote a paper about contact tracing, talking about what we described as “corporate contact tracing” and raising questions for debates by public health authorities and scholars about an increasing reliance upon private sector organizations to execute their duties and responsibilities to the public at large. It raises a lot of difficult questions. In my mind, there's no clear way to draw the line.
The fragility of the public health system matched with the incredible data collection capacity of a number of private sector organizations makes it seem quite reasonable that we would turn to Facebook, etc., for data. Maybe that's a good idea, but there are also ways in which these public policy turns might drive more business toward these platforms.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Thank you, Dr. French.
We're a little over time. I want to allow Mr. Soroka to get a minute in, and then Ms. Khalid will have the final word for a minute.
Go ahead, Mr. Soroka.
Conservative
Gerald Soroka Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Thank you, Chair.
To Dr. Weinstock, you talked a lot about public trust of the government. The Privacy Commissioner offered to examine the data to determine whether it was declassified correctly, and the government declined.
Does that sound like building trust in the government?
Full Professor, Department of Philosophy, McGill University, As an Individual
That's a very good example. We have these mechanisms in place, which are the sorts of things that people can't look at under the hood of these very complex questions, but here's someone who has been nominated precisely because we think that's their job. When they're sidelined, it tends to raise suspicion that there is something to hide, whereas—and I insist on this point—there might not be anything to hide.
It becomes increasingly paradoxical that the government chooses to sideline a trust-building institution when, in fact, it could very well have been that had he looked under the hood at this data collection process, he would have found that everything was entirely ethically appropriate, from a privacy point of view.