The Office of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner and the Office of the Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner have expressed their support for the use of the new COVID alert exposure application.
Implementation is a national initiative, with the federal government leading up to its development. The federal and Ontario privacy commissioners reviewed the application, made their recommendations to the federal and Ontario governments, and concluded that the privacy principles of consent and trust, legal authority, necessity and proportionality, limitation of purpose, deletion of identity, matrix time limitation, transparency, liability, and safeguards have been respected.
The federal and Ontario privacy commissioners approved the voluntary nature of the application and safeguards that were in a position to protect the identity of users. They also stated that the unproven application would likely be effective in helping to restrict the spread of the COVID-19 virus, along with other government measures, such as manual touch search.
The commissioners also learned about the potential dangers and advised solutions imaginable. Due to uncertainty around the effectiveness of implementation, the Commissioners advised that the application be monitored and dismantled if it is useless or no longer effective in achieving its objective.
There is also a threat that third parties will verify to force app users to disclose data about their use of the app, the commissioners said. While governments have publicly announced that use of the app is voluntary and that users of the app must disclose data about their use of the app, the commissioners said those classified ads only mitigated, but eliminated the threat.
The commissioners suggested that the federal and Ontario governments monitor the implementation and effectiveness of implementation so that they can comply with the principles of necessity and proportionality. Commissioners also importance of independent oversight in building public trust.
“I use exposure notification generation to help control the spread of COVID-19, as long as it was used in the way it was designed to respect the privacy of Ontario residents,” said Patricia Kosseim, Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner.
“Canadians can use this generation knowing that it includes very vital privacy protections,” says Daniel Therrien, Federal Privacy Commissioner. I said, “I’m going to use it.”