It would belong to the person, and I would argue against it belonging to the state at this time. There's no evidence to suggest that once having that information.... I should say at the outset that I agree with everything Professor Scassa said and will say, and you can hold me to that.
First, the discussion about this turns in part on centralized systems versus decentralized systems. Germany started out arguing for a centralized system and ended up arguing for a decentralized system that gave people control over their information. I think that information about a person belongs to that person; it doesn't belong to the state. The state may have some interest in it, as the professor said, but we need to start with trusting people.
Second, the state may play a role in incentivizing people to share that information. However, only once every other mean has been exhausted should the state ever consider trying to take ownership over that information.
We talk a lot about what is mandatory and not mandatory in Canada. It's extraordinary to me that this country has come to that. Very little about the incentivizing that can take place can get even greater compliance. This is compliance with the use of the contact-tracing apps, compliance with respect to reporting and compliance with respect to self-quarantining. Sure, I guess you could use a stick to try to get people to do it, but I would argue it's going to be ineffective. People won't use it; it will be avoided. The alternative is to provide incentives for that.
In the United States, an economist at The University of Chicago talks about how much money would be saved if governments paid people to comply, to self-isolate and to get tested every week, for example, or created some incentive so that when people participate in it, they get some kind of a benefit. It might end up being a lottery, with, in essence, a pandemic lottery ticket. We're talking about the author of Freakonomics. I think it's safe to say that economists at The University of Chicago can be respected and taken seriously.
The idea is to try to internalize the externalities. We should be doing more of that in allowing people to take the information they own and use it in a way that aligns with what the state wants from them.