CANON Events

Upcoming Events

Practical De-identification Methods Course

Date: April 17, 2025

See our new Education and Training page for more details.

Past Events

Unlocking the Future of AI in Healthcare: The Role of De-Identification

Date: January 22, 2025

CANON and AccessPrivacy co-hosted an engaging roundtable webinar discussion on the use of de-identification in AI training and deployment in the health sector. Our panel of experts provided insights and actionable solutions informed by clinical and data governance perspectives from their work in the healthcare space.

The discussion was moderated by Adam Kardash, Co-Chair of the Privacy and Data Management Group at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and National Lead of AccessPrivacy, and Rosario Cartagena, Chief Privacy and Legal Officer at ICES and Special Counsel, Privacy and Data Management at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP.

Our moderators were joined by the following esteemed panelists: Avi Goldfarb, Rotman Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare, University of Toronto; Roxana Sultan, Chief Data Officer and Vice President, Health at the Vector Institute; Devin Singh, Staff Physician & Co-Lead Clinical AI in Medicine at SickKids and Co-Founder & CEO of Hero AI; and Khaled El Emam, Canada Research Chair in Medical AI and Professor, School of Epidemiology and Public Health, University of Ottawa, and current Scholar-in-Residence at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

Consultation Session on Draft De-Identification Guidance Issued by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario

December 18, 2024

Detailed draft de-identification guidance has been issued by the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC). The draft guidance, which consists of 11 Fact Sheets, builds on the IPC’s 2016 “De-identification Guidelines for Structured Data”. The final version of this guidance will be informative and impactful for stakeholders in the Canadian privacy arena across the public, health and private sectors.

As part of the IPC’s consultation process, the Canadian Anonymization Network (CANON) has been solicited by the IPC for feedback on the draft de-identification guidance. 

CANON and AccessPrivacy co-hosted a roundtable webinar to discuss the key features of the draft guidance and its practical impact, and to obtain comments from webinar attendees.

The discussion was moderated by Adam Kardash, Co-Chair of the Privacy and Data Management Group at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and National Lead of AccessPrivacy, and featured CANON Steering Group members Pamela Snively and Suzanne Morin, as well as Marian Vermeulen, Sr. Director, Research, Data & Financial Services, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES).

Developing Guidelines for Synthetic Data Generation: Lessons from Singapore

October 22, 2024

CANON hosted a discussion with Singapore’s regulator on the development of their recent Guide on Synthetic Data Generation. Vivian Shah of the Singapore Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) provided an overview on the PDPC’s newly launched guide (“Privacy Enhancing Technology (“PET”): Proposed Guide on Synthetic Data Generation”).

Legislative Roundtable: Draft Regulation on the anonymization of personal information in Quebec

January 30, 2024

CANON and AccessPrivacy jointly hosted an interactive online discussion of the scope, meaning and possible impact of the proposed Regulation. The discussion was moderated by Adam Kardash, Chair of the Privacy and Data Management Group and National Lead of AccessPrivacy at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP, and featured CANON Steering Group members Khaled El Emam, Keren Groll, Suzanne Morin and Pamela Snively.

  • Webinar Recording (Youtube)
  • Webinar Transcript (English PDF) (French PDF)
  • Chat/Q&A from session (PDF)
  • CANON Submission to Quebec’s Secrétariat à la réforme des institutions démocratiques, à l’accès à l’information et à la laïcité: “Comments in response to the Québec government’s consultation on the draft Regulation respecting the anonymization of personal information“, February 5, 2024 (English PDF) (French PDF)
  • Draft Regulation respecting the anonymization of personal information [PDF]

Legislative Reform Roundtable: The impact of the “anonymized” and “de-identified” data provisions within Bill C-27

November 3, 2022

Adam Kardash and Suzanne Morin lead an engaging roundtable discussion on the proposed amendments to the relevant definitions and associated provisions regarding “anonymized” and “de-identified” data in Bill C-27 and the implications for private and public sector organizations in Canada.

Toward a Canadian De-identification Framework: Lessons from Singapore

July 20, 2022

Kai Siang Sze Toh, Assistant Director, Policy and Tech, Personal Data Protection Commission, joined CANON to discuss the Commission’s recently published updated guidance for the anonymization of data, as well as a set of tools to support its implementation.

Perspectives on Regulating De-identified Data in Canada

November 24, 2021

  • Webinar Recording (Youtube)
  • Presentation: A Privacy Regulatory Authority Perspective (IPC Patricia Kosseim)
  • Panel: A Private Sector Perspective (Keren Groll & Adam Kardash)
  • Q & A Discussion (moderated by Suzanne Morin)

Practices and Framework for Generating Non-Identifiable Data

July 15, 2021

  • Webinar Recording (Youtube)
  • Practices for Generating Non-Identifiable Data (Khaled El Emam)
  • Implications for Regulatory Reform and Practice (Adam Kardash)
  • Overview and Status of CIO Strategy Council’s Draft Privacy enhancing data de-identification framework (Nadine Letson)
  • Q&A (moderated by Suzanne Morin)

COVID-19 Mini-Summit

June 19, 2020