Information & Ethics committee  No. People aren't fully aware of certain uses.

Information & Ethics committee  That essentially amounts to saying that cellphone users were unaware of the practice and therefore were unable to opt out. People can't withdraw consent when they don't know it's an option. As I was saying, in my opinion, more steps should have been taken by Telus and the govern

Information & Ethics committee  The principle of transparency should definitely be included in the Privacy Act. There should be greater transparency.

Information & Ethics committee  I would say that in Europe, the laws are certainly more stringent. That said, we can provide you with a more detailed answer in writing, if you wish.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right. As I said in my remarks, I don't think the ultimate solution is simply greater transparency and explicit consent, given that data is used in an extremely wide range of ways, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad. Therefore, you need objective criteria, co

Information & Ethics committee  The information provided to us was, in principle, consistent with the framework we had established. We offered to go under the hood to determine if the data had indeed been de‑identified properly, but the government declined that offer. In terms of principles, we saw no problem.

Information & Ethics committee  That's what we will be investigating. I cannot comment on that at this time.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, it was published several months ago.

Information & Ethics committee  We received complaints at the very end of 2021, about two months ago. We referred questions to the appropriate departments a few weeks ago, but we're still waiting for their responses. I wish I could tell you that we will be able to conclude the investigation while your study is

Information & Ethics committee  In a formal investigation, if we had been consulted, we could have made conclusions based on information that, I would remind you, the government still hasn't provided to us. In addition, in an investigation, you have to hear from both the complainant and the respondents, which d

Information & Ethics committee  We're not the only experts. Expertise is not spread evenly among all institutions, but here, we're dealing with the Government of Canada, which has experts, and with large telecom companies that also have experts. We offered our expertise. It was declined. It is what it is.

Information & Ethics committee  Again, consent is not a silver bullet or a solution for all cases. There's no question here that, as I said in my statement, most Canadians whose data was used did not know their data was used. The parties, both the government and the private sector, could have done more to infor

Information & Ethics committee  I cannot, because that is the subject of the investigation we are going to have to conduct as a result of the formal complaints we have received under the law. What I can say is that we have had discussions with PHAC. They informed us, again, that they intended to use de‑identif

Information & Ethics committee  I'm happy to take questions.

Information & Ethics committee  On the facts of whether we were consulted or informed, and what was the tenor of these discussions, we were informed by PHAC and a group within the innovation department that the government wanted to use de-identified information for the purposes outlined: i.e., use mobility data