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.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
I don't think we can reach perfection, but I think we should go further. From the research I've been doing, we do not—
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
We're talking about this from a Telus data for good program perspective. I want to make sure we're not speaking generally.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Mr. Fergus, you actually used almost all of your time in asking your question. We're significantly over time now.
Liberal
Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC
I'm sorry. I would ask the witnesses, if they wish to answer that, to send us some notes in writing. That would be helpful.
Liberal
Conservative
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Good afternoon.
Thank you to the two witnesses, Mr. Weinstock and Mr. French.
To start, I would like to say that I do not believe that the intent of the Public Health Agency was malicious, as all of the witnesses have stated, by the way. I believe that the agency was probably well-intentioned. What bothers me is the way it went about it, which led to a lack of transparency.
Mr. Weinstock, the question that I would like to ask you is quite broad in scope.
In a polarized world, where people distrust rather easily... The current government has downplayed situations like those involving the Aga Khan and WE Charity. It's the same thing here. In fact, the Minister of Health trivialized the situation by saying that it was no big deal.
I am curious. What are the effects of this—almost commonplace— trivialization on trust in our institutions?
Full Professor, Department of Philosophy, McGill University, As an Individual
I will try to give a brief answer because I know that time is short.
Polarization is a multiplayer game. Responsibility for the current polarization is shared among a number of players. For example, the media are partly responsible.
A prudent politician, in the classic sense of the term, must be able to read the temperature of the room, in terms of polarization, in order to gauge how to communicate with the general public.
We are living in a time when the media are always on the hunt for missteps to increase polarization or draw attention. It may be a regrettable situation, but it is what it is.
I don't want to say that such and such a person is fully responsible for polarization, but it seems to me that elected officials should take action to reduce polarization. I'm not pointing fingers, but I feel that throwing oil on the fire simply creates scandals where none exist.
I agree with you that, in this particular case, it is highly likely that the data use is perfectly harmless. However, hiding things and overlooking the Privacy Commissioner makes it look as though something is something off, which has a tendency to fuel polarization rather than reduce it. That's unfortunate, in the current context.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Okay. Thank you very much.
In March 2020, the Prime Minister and Dr. Tam announced during a press conference that data would be used and that it could be tracked on the COVIDTrends website. It was on The Weather Network website.
Does that meet your definition of “making information public”?
Full Professor, Department of Philosophy, McGill University, As an Individual
I will be very honest. Two years of pandemic is a long time, and I think things that were said two years ago are worth repeating regularly. We have lived through so much, and there have been so many twists and turns in the limitations and reductions in terms of rights and freedoms that I don't think this matter can simply be removed from public debate once and for all, at the beginning of the pandemic, to never come back to it.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Okay.
Mr. French, I will ask you the same question.
In your opinion, do the COVIDTrends website and the press conference meet the sociological definition of “making a situation or information public”?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
I would like to see the Public Health Agency of Canada and the governments in Canada be more forthcoming. I feel they are doing a good job, but they could go further.
I mentioned the COVID Alert app, which is something I've studied. If we look at the privacy policy, which is on the website, objectively speaking, in terms of a landscape of privacy policies out there, it's pretty good. It's much more legible than many privacy policies.
Nevertheless, there are still...If you're an android OS user, you have to click through that policy to actually see the way the API works through Google Play to allow Google to access your location data.
I do think we need to go further.
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you very much.
Dr. Weinstock, I would like to hear from you about the course of events from March 2020 to present. The committee has met, we asked for the suspension of a call for tenders and the House has consented to it, but the government is not responding.
Do you think that this builds trust, or does it erode it and result in distrust?
Full Professor, Department of Philosophy, McGill University, As an Individual
That's difficult. That question could be considered leading.
Once again, these are partisan actions or reflexes that probably have no place in situations like this one. I believe that, at some point, Dr. Tam said that it wouldn't be the end of the world to wait a few weeks for the committee to submit its report. I think that the government is perhaps miscalculating the benefits and drawbacks of the partisan measures that it is taking. That means that Canadians may get the impression that there is something fishy going on, when that may not be the case. It's the height of irony to be in a situation where everyone is criticizing you for something that is baseless because—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Thank you, Dr. Weinstock. You were over time, and I was just going to encourage you to wrap up.
I'm going to go to Mr. Green, for six minutes.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you.
It is certainly an incredible opportunity to have another panel of subject matter experts on this.
I want to pick up, and put the same question to this group of witnesses as I did in the previous group. I heard Dr. French talk about updated legal frameworks. What exception, if any, should exist with respect to the collection, use and disclosure of anonymized or de-identified information?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
Could I just ask for a clarification? Is it what exception in law should there be?
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I would say not just in law but in ethics, as in your research on privacy. We are always balancing the public good, and you had mentioned your support for the active use of what is being called “digital epidemiology” to provide evidence-based decision-making for our public health agencies.
What exceptions, if any, should exist with respect to the collection, use and disclosure of anonymized and de-identified information?
My hope is that coming out of this study, we'll have some prescriptive recommendations from this committee that will perhaps provide guardrails.
I'll give you another example. I presented in a notice of motion the idea of better understanding privacy impact assessments, and how the government processes the balance of those two considerations, when moving forward for the public interest.
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
Thank you for that clarification.
I agree. I think that there's, let's say, a history in public health of crisis response. Understandably, public health has articulated surveillance systems to respond to crises, and sometimes these operate at a bit of a lower sort of oversight threshold because of the emergency nature of the response. I think that working with that culture, working to push that culture...let's say “enable the culture”.... I think public health professionals have had a tremendously challenging time in this pandemic and being under-resourced, for example. Could we resource our public health professionals better to attend to things like these kinds of implications that I've been flagging, the privacy implications of the crisis decisions that they're having to make?
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Dr. Weinstock, before I get to you, I just want to carry on with that as a supplementary question.
Dr. French, you are quoted as saying, “There are populations that could experience an intensification of tracking that could [be] harmful...”. This committee, in upcoming weeks and months, is going to be looking at AI, facial recognition and, as I referenced, the idea of digital epidemiology.
I was reading a review from the Canadian Public Health Association of Canada's initial response to COVID-19, which lays out all the ways in which our information is shared globally through the Global Public Health Intelligence Network. Could you identify any potential for concern, not just related to this, but also more broadly to ways in which AI could present a problem for some groups?
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, As an Individual
This is a broad question. I'm not sure I can give a short answer to it, but I think there are historical examples of epidemiological data collected for good reason but being then subsequently used in stigmatizing ways.
I could point you to the 1982 publication of an article in the CDC's MMWR, the epidemiological weekly report, that identified Kaposi's sarcoma in Haitian communities, and we know that subsequently.... I could point you also to my colleague Dr. Viviane Namaste's work and 2019 book, Savoirs créoles, which talked about the experience of the Montreal Haitian community with this stigmatization that emerges post-1982. I'm thinking sociologically about these kinds of longer effects of specific programs, if I could put it like that in response to your question. I think we need to do better going forward.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'm going to say this, and this is not a stretch given where we're at in front of Parliament. We've heard today from Dr. Weinstock, who was talking about the feelings, and we know that through AI there could be the opportunity.... In fact, several Canadian universities are conducting research to develop analytical approaches on some of these challenges. They're using things like social media data in trying to sift through and find out where the public feeling is on particular issues to be able to shift some of our popular education and public education resources and our communications to, hopefully, offset this bit of a powder keg that we're seeing.
Would you care to comment on the use of digital epidemiology, for the lack of a better term, on that? Or, if you would, perhaps you could provide any additional comments in writing, as I know my time is now up.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Conservative
Full Professor, Department of Philosophy, McGill University, As an Individual
It would probably be better if tried to provide you something in writing. I don't know how to say anything in 10 seconds.