With a quickly altering political panorama in the US, Canada should transfer shortly to safeguard invaluable Canadian well being knowledge, argue the authors of a commentary printed within the Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal.
“The worth of Canada’s well being knowledge is immense,” write Dr. Kumanan Wilson, CEO, Bruyère Well being Analysis Institute and an inside medication specialist at The Ottawa Hospital and the College of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, and co-authors. “The sovereignty dangers related to these knowledge are actual. If Canada is to guide within the well being AI area, it should transfer shortly to determine long-overdue privateness and expertise safeguards.”
The rise of synthetic intelligence (AI) and its reliance on huge quantities of information has elevated the worth of those knowledge and created new dangers on prime of pre-existing considerations about well being knowledge being utilized by different international locations for nationwide safety functions.
“Severe privateness, safety, and financial dangers come up when corporations in different international locations maintain and use Canadian knowledge. Given the quickly altering political local weather in the US, preserving the sovereignty of Canada’s well being knowledge—notably, making certain that the information are topic to Canadian legal guidelines and authorized methods—requires renewed focus,” writes co-author Dr. Michael Geist, a Canada Analysis Chair in Web and e-Commerce Legislation, and professor on the Heart for Legislation, Expertise and Society, College of Ottawa.
Canada’s well being system is basically reliant on US suppliers that handle digital medical report methods for hospitals and retailer encrypted knowledge on servers or cloud servers. Though these servers are situated in Canada, they’re owned by the US corporations Microsoft Azure, Amazon Net Providers, and Google Cloud.
Europe has expressed related considerations for his or her area. For instance, the current Clarifying Lawful Abroad Use of Knowledge (CLOUD) Act within the US that probably permits US legislation enforcement to entry knowledge held by US corporations in different international locations could possibly be a menace.
To guard well being knowledge in Canada, the authors recommend a multipronged method:
- Guarantee knowledge safety by requiring encryption by default
- Embody necessities in federal and provincial privateness legal guidelines to maintain knowledge within the originating location
- Implement guidelines in Canadian privateness legal guidelines in opposition to disclosure of information to overseas jurisdictions
- Spend money on creating Canadian cloud servers to make sure knowledge resides in Canada with Canadian suppliers
“Canada ought to contemplate mechanisms by which our knowledge could possibly be used safely, securely, and in a privacy-compliant method by Canadian private-sector entities to help the event of home well being AI algorithms,” the authors write.
“Implementing such measures will be certain that well being care choices are based mostly on knowledge consultant of Canada’s inhabitants, and can help the expansion of home corporations, supporting a greater well being system and rising tax base.”
Extra data:
Michael Geist et al, Guaranteeing the sovereignty and safety of Canadian well being knowledge, Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal (2025). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.250488
Quotation:
Canadian well being knowledge safety is vital in altering political local weather (2025, July 28)
retrieved 28 July 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-07-canadian-health-critical-political-climate.html
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