About Us
Earning and maintaining public trust is foundational to the success of any health system since a strong health system relies on sharing health data. Unless people trust the health system to appropriately and safely use and share their data, they may be hesitant to be honest with their health providers, adapt to new digital health solutions, participate in health research, or allow their health data to be shared to better everyone's quality of life. Without public trust, everyone's health suffers. To foster trust, Ontario must be transparent and accountable when it comes to how health data is collected, managed, used, and shared across the health system. Ontario must create avenues for people, groups, and communities to participate in government decisions and enhance health data literacy so you can feel confident that your health data is being used and shared for good.
Ontario’s Transparency Centre (Data for Good) was founded to strengthen Ontario’s health data literacy, provide opportunities for sustained public engagement, offer support and advocacy resources, and ensure transparent reporting and returning of data to the groups and communities to whom the data belongs. The Centre’s mission is to educate, engage, support, and report to Ontarians on the protection, use, and sharing of their health data for the purpose of strengthening Ontario’s health care system and ensuring a healthier Ontario. This website is meant to equip the public as well as health providers and planners to become more informed about their health care and empower them to become health data for good advocates. This website will help people across Ontario:
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Learn how their health data can work for them to improve their care experiences
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Understand the basics about health data including how it is protected, stored, used, and shared
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Recognize the benefits of sharing health data for good through real world examples
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Raise awareness and promote public dialogue about and engagement with health data issues
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Participate in government decision-making about health data collection, use, and sharing.
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Historical Harms
Throughout history, data has been systematically weaponized against First Nations, Inuit, and Métis (FNIM) peoples as well as racialized and vulnerable communities. Data has been misused to justify colonization and sanction racist policies, such as the Indian Act, the residential school system, and the Sixties Scoop. Canada is also responsible for over-collecting, selling, and blocking access to First Nations, Inuit, and Métis (FNIM) data. Despite these harms, loss of trust in the government and the healthcare system, and persistent health inequities, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples are determining the path to heal their communities.
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Only through transparency and sustained engagement on the collection, use, sharing, and reporting of health data can reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples be achieved. In accordance with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), Data for Good respects First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples' data sovereignty, acknowledges their rights to self-determine how their data will be governed in Ontario, and supports their efforts to govern and steward data about them based on their needs and preferences.