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Evidence of meeting #8 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 consent.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #8 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 consent.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
It's the usefulness of the data. Would that make the data not so accurate in terms of the kind of data we're collecting if it were an opt-in? Maybe people just wouldn't be doing it.
4:10 p.m.
Director, Data Science, BlueDot
I see.
Mr. Chair, I do think that it's probably true in the general sense that opt-in policies usually result in fewer people opting in than opt-out policies do. I think that is true as a general statement.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Okay.
Your website states that BlueDot was one of the first organizations in the world to detect the risk of COVID-19 and alert its clients. How did BlueDot identify the emerging risk of COVID-19 before anyone else did?
4:10 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Toronto, BlueDot
Mr. Chair, I'm happy to take that question.
This, I think, comes back to the fact that BlueDot is an infectious disease insights organization. The work we're doing with mobile data is just one small piece in what we do.
What we have developed is a platform that is monitoring online publicly available sources, currently in 65 different languages, using things like machine learning to help pick up early signals or clues that there may be an outbreak occurring in a particular area of the world maybe before it's actually officially reported. That is something we have developed over years, because ultimately we know that time is everything when you're trying to respond to an outbreak.
Our platform detected it back in late December of 2019, and, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, knowing that there's an outbreak is one thing, but actually understanding its potential for global spread is another. That's something that we also do, using the data on the worldwide movements of flights through the global airline transportation network that we all live in. We in fact published the world's first peer-reviewed study accurately predicting where COVID-19 would start to spread. That was back in early January of 2020.
I think this gives you a sense, hopefully, that as an organization we are looking at this problem holistically, from early detection to assessment and to emergency response.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you for that.
Further to that, what efforts did you make to comply with Canada's privacy legislation?
4:15 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Toronto, BlueDot
Mr. Chair, I think I'll try to take that.
Certainly, any of the data we are working with is de-identified. It is not associated with any information about names, addresses, occupations, nationality or any data of that sort.
In relation to the work we have done with population mobility data, we have ensured that we're working with providers that are following Canadian and other international privacy laws and regulations and have had a chance to get assurances and do our own diligence on the data privacy practices they had in place.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
Yes, you're out of time, Mr. Bains.
We'll move now to Monsieur Villemure for two and a half minutes.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before I begin, I would like to let the witnesses know that they must have the equipment provided by the House, as the interpreters are struggling to hear what is being said. I hope this won't count against my time.
Dr. Khan, your testimony was fascinating. I would like to draw on your 20 years of experience and have a broader discussion. What do you think about the exploitation of data in general, which, through a surveillance capitalism of sorts, can influence and change a population's behaviour?
Do you see surveillance capitalism as dangerous?
I understand that what you are doing is very good, but I am calling on your overall experience.
4:15 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Toronto, BlueDot
Thank you for the question, and apologies for my perhaps suboptimal mike. I hope you can all hear me okay.
This is certainly a broader question and an important question. I will say that we really believe that our purpose—this is what I can speak to—is a noble purpose. We are using business as a vehicle for social good and social impact. It is—
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
I will interrupt you, Mr. Khan, as I am convinced.
Based on your experience and your knowledge, do you think data exploitation can constitute surveillance capitalism that influences and changes a population's behaviour?
4:15 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Toronto, BlueDot
I do think there are concerning uses of data in some forms that can influence behaviour and certainly can have negative social impacts. I would agree with that statement.
As to my personal feeling, I don't believe that the work we're doing falls into that particular domain. However, I would agree broadly, as a general statement, that the statement you made is fair.
4:15 p.m.
Bloc
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'd like to take a moment to pick up where my colleague from the Bloc left off to get a better understanding of this from both Dr. Khan and Mr. Demarsh based on their respective experiences.
We're going into this new frontier of digital epidemiology or surveillance to hopefully help change habits in a way that is beneficial to the public. I'm wondering, from your experiences, what is too far. What are the boundaries that, ethically, we should not breach and that would respect the privacy of people's health and well-being versus the balance of societal good?
4:15 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Toronto, BlueDot
Mr. Chair, perhaps I'll try to take that question. It's a big one. It's an important question.
The identification of individuals and personal information obviously requires a different level of consent. Drawing from my own experience with informed consent, when I'm talking to a patient about having a surgical intervention or something, I have to make sure I'm explaining all of the risks and benefits. As it relates to personal information, an additional level of rigour is certainly required.
I want to highlight some of the earlier comments. Our goal is not to.... We are not directly looking to change individual behaviours. We are generating public health insights to inform and empower the public health community to make—
4:20 p.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'll just interject. If I could, I'd like Mr. Demarsh to add, given his experience at PHAC.
4:20 p.m.
Director, Data Science, BlueDot
I would agree with the general statement. There are widely accepted additional requirements when data could be associated with an individual in any conceivable way, and certainly in medicine and epidemiology, when private health information is included, there are additional levels of scrutiny and security.
I'll just clarify that BlueDot does not hold any personal information across any of our holdings, in mobility data or beyond. We don't have any private health information in our system in any sense. That would require substantially more investment in privacy and security, and different trade-offs between goods such as public security in the context of a pandemic and other valid goods, like personal privacy.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Pat Kelly
We will go now to the final two questioners, MP Patzer and MP Khalid, for five minutes each.
Go ahead, Mr. Patzer.
February 17th, 2022 / 4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to start by asking you how many countries you are collecting data from.
4:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Toronto, BlueDot
The question is about data. Do you mean data in general or...?
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Yes, I guess just generally speaking, because as you talked about, it's not just a Canada-based package. You're getting datasets from across the world. How many countries is it, approximately?
4:20 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Professor of Medicine and Public Health, University of Toronto, BlueDot
I would say that for mobility data—and I'd have to look up that number—it's probably most of the world in some form. Obviously there are certain areas where there may be more devices and more data. We are looking at global airline and transportation data across the entire planet, as we are trying to detect early signals of outbreaks. We are doing this in multiple languages across the world. This is really a global problem and requires a global view of this kind of risk.
4:20 p.m.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Okay. That's obviously an enormous amount of data that requires a lot of server capacity.
Where are all the servers that host all that data? Are they all here in Canada, or where are those servers located?