TRANSFORMING PUBLIC POLICY
CPI is committed to engaging with policymakers to ensure that relevant research done by faculty members is brought to their attention through effective and impactful knowledge mobilisation. Over the past year, CPI conferences have focused on critical public policy issues. The annual conference 2022 highlighted discussions on the erosion of societal social capital, and our annual conference 2023 focused on the theme of protecting diverse application domains. Further, CPI members helmed events that discussed the cybersecurity talent gap facing Canada and data collection issues impacting effective public policy, as well as the issues surrounding how digital disinformation presents a mounting threat to, and challenge for, liberal democracies.
Cybersecurity, Privacy and Artificial Intelligence in Health Event
Anindya Sen, CPI’s Associate Director, recently produced an event in our nation’s capital, Cybersecurity, Privacy and Artificial Intelligence in Health. This event centered on Canada’s adoption of the latest information technology in the healthcare system, emphasizing that with the right information technology, it has the potential to optimize most aspects of medical care to ensure patients get the right care at the right time. One of the main challenges is that advances in technologies like AI are moving so fast that administrators and front-line workers may not fully trust in them such that they can enable their full use across the healthcare sector. This conference assembled leading researchers and experts across different faculties from the University of Waterloo to discuss the salient issues surrounding such concerns. University of Waterloo researchers discussed their work, which included the development of differential privacy methods, generation of synthetic data, and trust in government policy. The conference resulted in further research collaborations with the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) approaching Professors Helen Chen and Samantha Meyer for future joint research.
A recent survey of the attendees for the Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Artificial Intelligence in Health Data: Advancements and Challenges Conference evidenced a highly engaged audience with a panoply of questions concerning health technology, public policy, and other relevant concerns, indicating a strong need for this type of event that helps raise awareness of these concerns and provides vital networking opportunities to address them.
Professor Sen is now working on organizing similar conferences that address cybersecurity and data privacy concerns faced by Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) Canada and the Ontario Government.
The papers that were produced for the conference are available in an e-book on the CPI website. The e-book contains forewords written by Vivek Goel, Anil Arora (Chief Statistician of Canada), and Stephen Lucas (Deputy Minister, Health Canada). The videos of the talks are available on YouTube, to facilitate widespread and continual knowledge dissemination.
The Weaponization of Disinformation in Canada Workshop
A CPI Seed Grant that developed into a SSHRC Connection grant helped fund an event produced by CPI Member Bessma Momani, entitled ‘The Weaponization of Disinformation in Canada'. This two-day workshop covered a comprehensive slate of topics, highlighted by the keynote address from Shelly Bruce, “Foreign Disinformation Campaigns: A View from the Security and Intelligence Trenches”. Shelly Bruce was appointed to the position of Chief (Deputy Minister), CSE in June 2018 and retired in September 2022, after 33 years in Canada’s national cryptologic agency. The collected materials presented at the workshop will result in an edited book from U of T press.
This workshop focused on how digital disinformation presents a mounting threat to, and challenge for, liberal democracies. Global events like Brexit, electoral interference, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, have made the abstract threat of digital disinformation into a distinct reality. The shifting global balance of power, characterized by growing multipolarity, is unfolding alongside the expansion of tools, strategies, and spaces for adversarial states and non-state actors to expand their influence, disrupt multilateral diplomacy, threaten liberal democratic norms and values, and de-legitimize a rules-based global order. Adversarial states and non-state actors are increasingly adept, agile, and strategic in digital spaces, using information and communication technologies to advance geopolitical, ideological, and strategic objectives.