Travel during the pandemic | An ethics committee wants to curb the collection of location data

(Ottawa) The House of Commons Ethics Committee says the Public Health Agency of Canada’s (PHAC) decision to collect data from millions of cellphones to understand habits must be halted. displacement during the pandemic.

The committee passed a motion on Monday calling on the government to suspend plans to expand the collection of cellphone location data until it is satisfied that the privacy of Canadians will not be affected.

In December, the Public Health Agency issued a new request for proposals to track cell tower location data nationwide between 1^er January 2019 and May 31, 2023.

The notice states that the data must be accurate, while ensuring confidentiality and transparency. They must also be stripped of any identifying information.

Members of the committee held an emergency meeting during Parliament’s winter recess, during which Conservative, Bloc and New Democrat MPs raised confidentiality concerns.

The motion adopted Monday was initiated by the vice-president of the ethics committee, René Villemure.

“I do not assume the admissibility of the objective of the Public Health Agency of Canada in this file, but we must ensure that the pandemic is not used as a pretext to invade the privacy of citizens” , advised Mr. Villemure, Bloc Québécois critic for access to information and the protection of personal information.

The Conservative ethics critic who sits on the committee, John Brassard, says the motion means the Prime Minister should now suspend the proposal to extend the collection of cellphone data from millions of people.

“We are still very concerned about the protocols and security measures put in place to protect privacy as they secretly collected the mobility data of 33 million Canadians,” he said.

Liberal MPs pointed out that the data collected is anonymous.

The Public Health Agency, which did not immediately comment, has previously said that location data from cellphone towers will be stripped of personal identifiers.

She said she also took advice from privacy and ethics experts.