Industry committee  It sounds like the answer is yes. Will Statistics Canada maintain a technical capability to access the data with personal identifiers after anonymizing the data?

Industry committee  Will you maintain the technical capability to access data with personal identifiers after anonymizing the data? If you have a master key, will you have the ability to have those files back together at some point in the future?

Industry committee  I understand the separation, but why would you not remove the records that have personal identifiers after anonymizing the data?

Industry committee  Why not delete it?

Industry committee  Okay.

Industry committee  To do this game, you're going to have to require the use of the banks. Obviously, the banks don't have the infrastructure to make that information available. You've also talked about real time and frequency, higher frequency use of the information. Are you going to be seeking to port the information through an API directly to Statistics Canada from the banks themselves?

Industry committee  How are you going to be able to get credit card information then? For example, some people will have a chequing account at a bank but then they'll use a credit card for much of their activity. You need to have access to both sets of information to do exactly what you're talking about.

Industry committee  Again, if you were only able to—

Industry committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Chief Statistician, for coming in today and for the work you and your organization do for Canadians. I'd like to start with clarifying a few things. First of all, many people were under the assumption that it was 500,000 individuals. In your remarks today, you said “households”.

Industry committee  What is the average per household?

Industry committee  Are we looking at approximately 1.5 million people who will be picked up by this sample?

Industry committee  Obviously, Canadians' health records as well as their financial records are quite important to them. Suddenly having a change in scheme has raised, I think, a lot of concern. When you are collecting this information, will it include children?

Industry committee  How do you safeguard that if someone has a bank account and lives in that household—

Industry committee  What if someone has a joint bank account for a relative—let's say an elderly mother or father who's on their own—that their name is on also and they live separate in a different household? Will that then be caught up by your survey of that particular household?

Industry committee  I'm not speaking about that, sir. I'm speaking about specifically other people. Some people will have joint accounts because they have control over those accounts for an elderly parent or grandparent. Will that elderly parent or grandparent be caught up because their social insurance number is tied to that bank account?