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Sexual and Reproductive Health Initiative

Introduction

The 2021 Canadian federal budget recognized the need for nationally representative data on sexual and reproductive health to better inform and support programs and policies. There are currently no existing comprehensive data on a wide range of sexual and reproductive health indicators in Canada. The budget designated $7.6 million in funding over five years to Statistics Canada to develop and implement a national survey on sexual and reproductive health, with a focus on supporting women's health. Better information will help government and non-governmental organizations monitor, plan, implement and evaluate programs to improve the sexual and reproductive health of women and the efficiency of health services.

To ensure that the information collected remains relevant for the people and organizations that use it, Statistics Canada embarked on a broad engagement process with stakeholders and data users.

Consultative engagement objectives

A program with an emphasis on sexual and reproductive health was a new area of focus for Statistics Canada. To ensure the relevancy of the initiative, Statistics Canada conducted extensive engagement activities with diverse data users, stakeholders and interested parties across Canada to understand the type of information that should be available through the initiative and how the data could be used.

The objectives of the engagement activities were to

• understand specific sexual and reproductive health information needs
• ensure the relevancy of products and analyses
• enhance information sharing with stakeholders
• manage stakeholder expectations with respect to the scope of the initiative
• align with key government priorities, such as Statistics Canada's Disaggregated Data Action Plan and the federal 2SLGBTQI+ Action Plan.

Consultative engagement methods

Engagement activities with partners and stakeholders—which included federal, provincial and territorial governments; advocacy and civil society organizations; clinicians; administrators; medical and service delivery organizations; and academic researchers—took place between December 2021 and June 2022. Feedback was collected in three phases: virtual meetings with federal partners and non-governmental stakeholders; email submissions from partners, stakeholders, and data users and providers; and small-group virtual discussions with data users.

PHASE 1: Virtual meetings with partners and stakeholders

Statistics Canada began by engaging with federal partners and non-governmental stakeholders to inform them about the Sexual and Reproductive Health Initiative and to learn about their information needs for sexual and reproductive health. Virtual meetings were held in December 2021 to inform these stakeholders of broader engagement activities. These partners and stakeholders also helped identify additional people and groups, both governmental and non-governmental, for the second phase of engagement activities.

PHASE 2: Email submissions from partners, stakeholders, and data users and providers

The email submission phase was conducted between December 2021 and January 2022 to understand the information needs in relation to sexual and reproductive health from a broad perspective.

An open-ended engagement document was sent to partners and stakeholders. Partners and stakeholders were encouraged to forward the email to their networks and partners. Statistics Canada received feedback from about 40 different organizations. To gain an understanding of specific information needs and existing sources of information, participants were asked:

• which topics related to sexual and reproductive health they or their organization were interested in
• the population and geographies of interest
• why the information was relevant to their organization
• what existing sources of information their organization uses in their work on sexual and reproductive health.

PHASE 3: Virtual group discussions with data users

Email participants, their networks and partners were invited to participate in small-group discussions to identify priority topics for the Sexual and Reproductive Health Initiative. The discussions were held between March 2022 and June 2022.

The types of feedback sought from the discussions included:

• sexual and reproductive health information needs in relation to policy and research questions
• the policies and programs that the data and analyses could be used to inform
• the most important sexual and reproductive health information to capture for decision making
• barriers and challenges in regard to sexual and reproductive health equity.

Discussions were organized around the broad topics that came out of the virtual meetings and email submissions. The seven broad topics were:

• access to sexual and reproductive health resources and services
• reproductive decision making, contraception and abortion
• sexual behaviour
• sexual and reproductive health literacy
• sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBIs)
• female reproductive health over the life course, with a focus on menstruation, perimenopause and menopause
• sexual and reproductive health equity.

Statistics Canada also reached out to stakeholders to participate in sessions with a specific focus on Indigenous peoples, people with disabilities, racialized groups, 2SLGBTQI+ people, youth and seniors.

Findings of the consultative engagements

Overall, the engagement activities generated close to 400 information needs. The engagement activities were not meant to prioritize information needs but rather identify key information needs from a wide range of stakeholders and data users. The following key information needs, in no particular order, were identified.

Equity

Equity was a recurring theme across all engagement activities. As one participant stated, "Equity is a spectrum—what serves the majority of the population is not enough. Sexual and reproductive health is subjective to each person, community and culture." Partners and stakeholders indicated a need for information about sexual and reproductive health, including gender, age, socioeconomic status, disability, sexual orientation, education, Indigenous groups, racialized groups, immigrant status and geographical location, to better understand differences between and among groups.

Sexual and reproductive health awareness and literacy

There was agreement across the engagement activities that knowledge about sexual and reproductive health would help in the development of healthy attitudes and practices towards sexual and reproductive health and facilitate conversations with health care professionals, sexual partners and families about sexuality, gender identity, and other sexual and reproductive health needs.

Feedback indicated a need for information about access to comprehensive sexuality education. This included information on the breadth of sexual and reproductive health topics taught in schools (for example, the treatment, management and prevention of STBBIs; pregnancy prevention; and healthy sexuality). Participants also noted that culturally relevant sexuality education can help provide diverse perspectives and non-judgmental information. Participants raised concerns about misinformation around sexual and reproductive health and the sources people use to obtain information.

Menstruation, perimenopause and menopause

Participants stated that information is needed about physical, mental, social and economic experiences related to menstruation, perimenopause and menopause. It is important to understand the different reproductive stages and the impact on the daily lives of girls and women.

Information needs around menstruation included the age of menarche, as it marks the start of reproductive years. Participants stated that young women need better information before the start of menarche. This includes what is happening to their bodies, the types of products they can use, options for the management of menstrual pain, knowledge about pregnancy prevention and contraception, the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, and healthy sexuality.

Period poverty was seen as a contributing factor to reduced physical and social well-being of girls and women. Access to quality menstrual products was thought to be key to participating in school, work, home and leisure activities.

In relation to menopause, participants identified a need for information about the symptoms of perimenopause, the age of onset of menopause and whether the onset of menopause was natural or surgical. Menopause marks the end of the reproductive years and may be accompanied by physical, emotional and sexual changes. Understanding how perimenopausal and menopausal symptoms are experienced will help to understand the physical, mental, social and financial impact that menopause can have on women.

Menstruation to menopause: Symptoms and treatment

Participants mentioned that to identify health challenges related to sexual and reproductive health, women and health care providers need to be informed about what is normal and what is not normal in relation to symptoms of menstruation, perimenopause and menopause. Participants highlighted that too often women's symptoms of poor health are attributed to menstruation, perimenopause or menopause, and underlying conditions are not diagnosed. It was pointed out that women suffer through symptoms such as pain, excess bleeding, night sweats, memory loss and vaginal dryness rather than find a way to manage the symptoms or seek help from a health care provider.

Many participants stated that pain has been normalized across the lifespan for women and often prevents treatment. Women's experiences of both physical and emotional pain need to be validated and better treatment options offered.

Access to medical treatment rather than surgical intervention was another area of concern that participants pointed out. For example, many perimenopausal women may have hysterectomies rather than medical treatment such as the use of hormonal intrauterine devices because of costs. Surgical interventions are often pursued because of lack of coverage for medical treatment.

Maternal health, pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes

Participants spoke about the importance of data on maternal health, in particular maternal mortality and morbidity, pregnancy and childbirth, and access and barriers to receiving care during pregnancy. To track progress towards a more equitable health care system, it is important to have data available by Indigenous and racialized identity, care provider, geography, sexual orientation, and gender.

It was noted that data on alcohol and drug use during pregnancy were needed to understand what type of support and programs are required to help prevent negative maternal and fetal health outcomes, preterm birth, and fetal loss.

Nutrition during pregnancy was also of interest, in particular, to examine food insecurity. Knowing the prevalence and severity of food insecurity during pregnancy can help to inform policies and identify resources required for women who are pregnant. Participants also emphasized the importance of access to traditional foods for First Nations people, Métis and Inuit, as lack of access to these foods adds to Indigenous people's experiences of food insecurity and may negatively impact their spiritual, emotional, physical and mental well-being.

Participants also emphasized that services such as fertility treatments and in vitro fertilization can help same-sex couples, couples dealing with infertility and people wishing to have a child without a partner. Cost can be a barrier to accessing these services. Information on the need for, use of and accessibility of these services can help when making program and policy decisions.

Participants mentioned that people should be given the means to time their pregnancies and space their children to avoid unintended pregnancy and childbirth. Data are needed to determine rates of unintended pregnancy to help inform policy, program development and monitoring. Better information about unintended pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes will help to inform understanding of the relationship of these experiences to social, ecological and behavioural determinants of health. Information about the use and accessibility of care, medications and procedures for abortions, miscarriages, stillbirths and ectopic or tubal pregnancies will help to better understand issues related to accessing services, such as cost, wait times and distance travelled.

Contraception

Access and barriers to, and knowledge and use of, birth control were frequently mentioned by participants. Participants stated that access to contraception should be an informed choice. Women should be able to choose the type of contraception that is best suited to their needs rather than choosing no method or cheaper methods. Participants felt that there is a lack of information and knowledge about different types of contraception and the correct use of contraception. Some participants asserted that most policies focus on women's ability to breed the next generation rather than women having the choice of when and how to become pregnant.

Information needs around awareness, use and accessibility of emergency contraception were also identified.

Sexual behaviours

There were numerous information needs related to sexual behaviours. Sexual behaviours were regarded as a key indicator of sexual and reproductive health.

Participants noted that the age at first sexual experience and whether the experience was wanted or not can impact long-term sexual behaviour and well-being, as they can be associated with engaging in unprotected sex or being a victim of sexual abuse and can potentially lead to pregnancy. Participants discussed that information is needed on diverse sexual behaviours to better understand the prevalence of various sexual behaviours and the impact they have on sexual health outcomes.

Several participants expressed that while people with disabilities are sexual beings, their sexual and reproductive health needs have been disregarded. More information is needed to understand sexual and reproductive health care needs and barriers among people with disabilities to help support education, training, policies and programs.

Stress and anxiety around sexual performance were considered an important topic to many participants as they relate to sexual behaviour and sexual well-being. Additionally, information is needed to understand the impact of changes in sexual and reproductive health on mental health over the life cycle and the impact they may have on overall quality of life.

Participants emphasized that understanding healthy sexual functioning can reduce societal stigma and shame about sexual difficulties and empower people to seek treatment. It was further mentioned that data are needed on sexual satisfaction and pleasure, the ability to communicate about sexual needs and desires, and erectile dysfunction and other sexual difficulties. Additionally, information on the use of substances or medications for engaging in sexual activity can help to understand the impact they have on sexual behaviour and the enjoyment of sexual activity.

Participants explained that there is very little Canadian data on the prevalence of transactional sex (exchange of sex for money, favours or goods), the use of sexual assistive technology like vibrators for sexual activity, and the use of and increased access to pornography.

Participants highlighted that new trends may be emerging in the digital era. It is important to understand the impact of digital technology on sexual behaviours and relationships. Participants discussed the growth in using digital technology to find new sexual and romantic partners and initiate sexual experiences. Participants highlighted the need for more information about digital technologies in relation to sexual isolation, sexual satisfaction and sexual identity.

Aging and sexual and reproductive well-being

Participants expressed that aging should not be seen as a barrier to having a healthy sex life. Feedback included that there are many social stigmas attached to women as they age and are no longer fertile. However, this is a stage in life where there are fewer barriers for women; for example, there is no longer a need to worry about pregnancy.

Participants noted the need for information to help educate women as they age about the risks of sexually transmitted infections despite no longer requiring birth control to prevent pregnancies. Education should also include understanding symptoms such as vaginal dryness, hot flashes, sleep disturbances and changes to cognitive functioning and options for available treatments. Participants indicated that healthy sexual activity is still important as women age, and information is needed to promote their overall physical and emotional well-being.

Sexual violence

Experiences of sexual violence were an important issue for many participants. They stated that sexual violence can impact physical, mental and sexual health.

Participants expressed the need for information on unreported sexual assaults and on the availability of support services for sexual and reproductive health healing after experiencing sexual violence.

Participants also discussed the need for information about forced and coerced sterilization. Data are needed on the scope, severity and health outcomes among marginalized and vulnerable groups, for example, Indigenous women, people with disabilities and racialized groups.

Participants also identified a need for information on the health outcomes of women and girls who have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). It was noted that this practice is recognized internationally as having physical and obstetric health complications, as well as psychological consequences. Determining whether the health outcomes of immigrant women and girls from FGM/C-practising countries differ from those of their counterparts from other countries can help inform health care providers of the unique health care needs of this group.

Chronic conditions and reproductive surgeries

Participants stated that information is needed to examine rates and determinants of health conditions affecting female sexual and reproductive health (e.g., pelvic organ prolapse, fibroids, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome) and male sexual and reproductive health (e.g., ejaculation disorders, infertility). Other information needs included the prevalence of gynecological cancer; cancer treatments; and reproductive surgeries such as hysterectomy, removal of ovaries and vasectomy. Participants indicated that better information is needed on the impact these conditions and surgeries can have on overall sexual and reproductive health.

Infections

Participants indicated that STBBIs and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) impact overall health, and the stigma and judgment of diagnoses can also impact one's social life. Data on STBBIs can support guidelines and can help to detect emerging trends of infections in the population. Participants further explained that information about access to testing, treatment and support for STBBIs, including preferred treatment and services such as self-test kits, can help identify and assess potential barriers and opportunities for new testing, treatment and prevention methods. A need for additional information on the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis and post-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention was also mentioned.

Information about urinary tract infections and yeast infections was also important to participants in understanding how these infections affect female reproductive health.

Access to and experiences with sexual and reproductive health services

Access to a family doctor whom patients are comfortable with was one of the most important information needs mentioned. People seeking services can be influenced by having access to care that is safe; tailored to their culture, religion and personal needs; and free from language barriers. Participants also mentioned the importance of having good experiences of health care, as high quality of care can help prevent negative health outcomes and increase the likelihood of seeking care in the future.

Participants indicated that there is very limited information about differences in access to sexual and reproductive health services. It is important to have information about who is accessing sexual and reproductive health services, the type of services being accessed, and the experiences of those accessing these services. For example, 2SLGBTQI+ individuals are considered underserved and require equitable sexual and reproductive health services that reflect their needs.

Information about experiences of discrimination in a health care setting was also of interest to participants, as they mentioned that this information can help to examine systemic and intersecting barriers and racism. Whether people have access to health care providers via alternate methods such as virtual clinics was also mentioned, as some participants pointed out that it may help to alleviate some barriers to sexual and reproductive health services.

Conclusion

The Sexual and Reproductive Health Initiative received support across all engagement activities. Participants agreed that data on sexual and reproductive health are important to support policies and programs at all levels of government, including across ministries, such as health and education ministries, and across advocacy organizations and support services. There are a number of existing and emerging data gaps related to sexual and reproductive health. While understanding health disparities is highly relevant to decision makers, the required data are often not available to support and implement evidence-based policies and programs.

Statistics Canada would like to thank all participants for their involvement in the engagement activities. Their valuable insights have helped guide the development of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Initiative, including the development of the questionnaire for the first pan-Canadian sexual and reproductive health survey conducted by Statistics Canada. This survey is scheduled to begin data collection in fall 2024.

Date and location:

November 7, 2023, 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
Hybrid meeting

• MS Teams
• The Ivan P. Fellegi Boardroom, 26th floor, R.H. Coats Building
  100 Tunney's Pasture Driveway, Ottawa

Members:

• Chantal Bernier, Co-chair, Global Privacy and Cybersecurity Group, Dentons Canada LLP (Chair)
• Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada
• Len Garis, Researcher and Adjunct Professor, University of the Fraser Valley 
• Ali Ghorbani, Cyber Security Chair, University of New Brunswick
• Robert Gordon, Executive Director, Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange
• David Robichaud, Ethics Professor, University of Ottawa

Regrets:

• Mary Dawson, former Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Lawyer

Statistics Canada guests/support:

• Antonio Bakopoulos
• Martin Beaulieu
• Josée Bégin
• Miguel DaCostaeSilva
• Pierre Desrochers
• Stéphanie Dion
• Tom Dufour
• Rebecca Kong
• Tony Labillois
• Lucie Léonard
• Guillaume Maranda
• Patrice Martineau
• Nicolas Rahal
• Eric Rancourt

1. Introductions and opening remarks

Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada
Chantal Bernier, Co-chair, Global Privacy and Cybersecurity Group, Dentons Canada LLP (Chair)

Mr. Arora opened the meeting by welcoming members to the seventh meeting of the Advisory Council on Ethics and Modernization of Microdata Access (ACEMMA). He also informed the Council that Mary Dawson had decided to step down from the Council and thanked her for her participation over many years. He added that she contributed greatly with her pertinent questions and always judicious interventions, and that she will be greatly missed.

Mr. Arora went on to talk about the changing environment in which Statistics Canada must evolve, and the various impacts on the organization. In particular, he discussed the growing need for disaggregated data to inform decision-making, the evolution of individual and collective rights, notably in terms of privacy, and new technologies which offer undeniable opportunities, but also present certain threats.

Mr. Arora pointed out that Statistics Canada remains very active, both nationally and internationally, to adapt quickly to change and maintain the trust of its partners, including Canadians.

He then introduced the members of Statistics Canada present at the meeting, as well as his team of Assistant Chief Statisticians.

Ms. Bernier went on to say how nice it was to have the chance to see each other in person again. Virtual meetings have their advantages, and were very useful during the recent pandemic, but face-to-face meetings offer undeniable intangible benefits.

Ms. Bernier also reiterated the importance of quality statistics and organizations like Statistics Canada for a better understanding of the world's challenges. She concluded by outlining the agenda for the meeting and introducing the members of the Council.

2. Management of the continuum between privacy protection and the production of statistical data to inform Canadians

Pierre Desrochers, Director, Office of Privacy Management and Information Coordination, Statistics Canada

Mr. Desrochers spoke of the importance for Statistics Canada of managing relationships with partners to maintain their trust and reiterated that this represents specific challenges and made a presentation to the Council on Social Acceptability in the Context of Microdata Access and Privacy.

Social acceptability includes maintaining direct and constant contact with Canadians, who inquire about how Statistics Canada uses and protects their information. Drivers towards change and social acceptability include the context of misinformation, the general level of trust in government, citizens concern about data protection in reaction to significant breaches as well as legal and technological developments in the public and in the private sector. Keeping abreast of technological and potential legislative changes is important.

Council members were pleased with the presentation and with Statistics Canada's concern with social acceptability. In reply to Statistics Canada's specific requests for guidance, with respect to necessary laws and regulations, the Council members raised the challenge for legislation to keep pace with technological advances, and therefore insisted on the importance of adopting guiding principles that can be adapted to new technologies, rather than strict policies that can quickly become outdated. Second, they underscored the renewed importance of Statistics Canada in quality statistics production, in the age of fake news and disinformation. Thirdly, it was recognized that trust remains a cornerstone to produce quality data, and an organization like Statistics Canada should maintain relationships with all Canadians.

In conclusion, the Council recommends that Statistics Canada continue to pay particular attention to social acceptability, since it materializes into trust. To maintain this trust, Statistics Canada must continue to represent all Canadians, explain its approaches and objectives transparently, and remain consistent and predictable.

3. Use of nudge to encourage participation in statistical programs

Guillaume Beaulac, Manager, Behavioural Insights and Impact, Shared Services Canada

Mr. Beaulac presented the concepts of nudge and choice architecture to the Council. He explained that our choice architecture decisions always have an impact. We should therefore opt for a structure aligned with nudge principles. He then defined the concepts underlying nudge and distinguished it from sludge, whose intentions are not necessarily benevolent.

Mr. Beaulac then provided several examples of nudge. He pointed out, however, that impacts can be difficult to predict and differ from one person or group to another. He therefore recommended to use experimentation and randomized controlled trials to assess impact.

Council members were pleased with the presentation. They support the use of nudge to encourage participation in statistical programs, especially in a context where response rates are declining. However, the use of nudge must respect ethical principles: first, before implementing a nudge, its necessity should be justified; second, the use of the nudge must be transparent; third, the option to withdraw should always exist (except for mandatory surveys); finally, it was suggested to offer, in return for accepting to participate in statistical programs, to receive the results. The use of experiments should also be considered.

4. Do no harm when publishing data on more vulnerable populations

Rebecca Kong, Assistant Director, Canadian Centre for Justice and Community Safety Statistics, Statistics Canada
Guillaume Maranda, Lead Analyst, Data Ethics Secretariat, Statistics Canada

Ms. Kong and Mr. Maranda shared the guiding principles used in different contexts including ethical reviews and the publication of disaggregated data:

• Benefits for Canadians
• Fairness and do no harm
• Transparency and accountability
• Quality
• Trust and sustainability
• Privacy and security
• Nothing about us without us

They also presented concrete, recent examples to illustrate each of these principles, and show how they can pose significant challenges. Their suggestion to help manage these situations is to establish guiding principles, guidelines and best practices for Statistics Canada employees and external users.

Council members were pleased with the presentation. They agreed with the challenges presented by the publication of disaggregated data, and in particular the concept of do no harm. There are sometimes several elements to consider, and no single solution. They also supported the use of guiding principles, guidelines, and best practices, although Statistics Canada must remain realistic about their use by external users.

The concept of nothing about us without us also raised questions. For example, could a group object to data concerning them (do they have a right of veto)? And who makes the decision, given that several groups may be involved? The Council reiterated two important principles when it comes to statistics: unless there is a major problem, the data collected should be published, and the rules should be established in advance and apply equally to all. Statistics Canada will need to clarify the scope of this principle and how it intends to manage its application.

The Council would like Statistics Canada to present the concrete results of the application of the various guiding principles at a future meeting.

5. Familiarizing statistical agencies and other organizations with data ethics

Walter Radermacher, Chair, Advisory Board on Ethics of the International Statistical Institute

Mr. Radermacher presented to the Council the tools his Advisory Board has put in place to promote the use of ethical principles in organizations, particularly statistical organizations. For example, they promote the establishment of values and guiding principles such as respect, integrity, and professionalism. He also shared tools for promoting data ethics, such as a periodic table of open data elements and a stakeholder analysis matrix for ethical purposes.

Council members were pleased with the presentation. Interestingly, the presentation bridged the three previous presentations, and provided ideas for solutions. In the Council's opinion, the whole presentation is an excellent reference tool.

6. Roundtable and closing remarks

Anil Arora, Chief Statistician of Canada
Chantal Bernier, Co-chair, Global Privacy and Cybersecurity Group, Dentons Canada LLP (Chair)

Mr. Arora and Ms. Bernier thanked members and invited them to share their final thoughts.

Advisory council action items and considerations

Action Items:

• Next meeting: Before April 2024.
• Find a replacement for Mary Dawson.
• Present the concrete results of the application of the various guiding principles related to the publication of disaggregated data at a future meeting.

Recommendations for Statistics Canada:

1. Management of the continuum between privacy protection and the production of statistical data to inform Canadians
   • Adopt guiding principles that can be adapted to new situations.
   • Remain a model when it comes to quality data.
   • Continue to pay particular attention to social acceptability.
   • Continue to represent all Canadians, explain Statistics Canada approaches and objectives transparently, and remain consistent and predictable.
2. Use of nudge to encourage participation in statistical programs
   • Use nudges to encourage participation in statistical programs.
   • Consider the use of experimentation to build knowledge.
3. Do no harm when publishing data on more vulnerable populations
   • Produce guiding principles, guidelines, and best practices to help users.
   • Clarify the scope of the nothing about us without us principle and how Statistics Canada intends to manage its application.

Introduction

This initiative is a collaborative effort led by Public Safety Canada and supported by Statistics Canada to create a national digital resource to inform Canadians of their flood risk and provide information to help Canadians better prepare for and mitigate against the impacts of flooding. This resource may be expanded in the future to include multi-hazard awareness for other natural disasters.

Flooding is Canada's costliest natural disaster. The average annual residential flooding costs in Canada are estimated at $2.9 billion (Canada's Task Force on Flood Insurance and Relocation, 2022). In addition, research has shown that a significant number of Canadians located in high-risk flood areas are not aware of their home or property being at risk, and therefore exposed to possible flooding events with potentially devastating consequences.

To address these issues, a national digital resource will be created that will:

• Inform Canadians of their residential flood risk by enabling users to search for tailored flood risk information specific to their property and community using their location details.
• Inform Canadians about flood risk reduction measures and encourage actions to improve overall flood preparedness and resiliency at the property and community levels.

Consultative engagement objectives

Statistics Canada will conduct research on behalf of Public Safety Canada to inform the creation and design of the new national digital resource.

Public Safety Canada is committed to creating resources that meet the needs of Canadians. Input from participants across the country will help ensure that new resources, such as the one related to this study, are informative, user-friendly, and helpful for all Canadians!

If you have personally experienced a recent flooding event in the past 5 years or live in an area at a higher risk of flooding for which you have had to prepare a home or property, we invite you to share facts about your experience. Your participation in this study is important to ensure the new national digital resource will meet the needs of Canadians.

If you have not personally experienced a flooding event or flood risk in your home or community in the past 5 years, but you know someone that has, please share this initiative with them.

How to get involved

If you wish to participate or obtain more information on this study, please contact us at statcan.ux-eu.statcan@statcan.gc.ca.

Statistics Canada is committed to respecting the privacy of participants. All personal information created, held or collected by the agency is protected by the Privacy Act. For more information on Statistics Canada's privacy policies, please consult the Privacy notice.

Reference

Canada's Task Force on Flood Insurance and Relocation (2022). Adapting to rising flood risk: An analysis of insurance solutions for Canada Public Safety Canada.

Securely combining data from multiple sources while preserving privacy

By: Betty Ann Bryanton, Canada Revenue Agency

Introduction

The increasing prevalence of technologies, such as cloud, mobile computing, machine learning (ML), and the Internet of Things (IoT), create opportunities for innovation and information sharing, but also create challenges for data security and privacy. These challenges have been amplified during the global pandemic, working from home has driven faster adoption of hybrid and cloud services. This situation has strained existing security capabilities and exposed gaps in data security (Lowans, 2020). Meanwhile, global data protection legislation is maturing, and every organization that processes personal data faces higher levels of privacy and non-compliance risks than ever before (Wonham, Fritsch, Xu, de Boer, & Krikken, 2020).

As a result, privacy-enhanced computation techniques, such as Secure Multiparty Computation, which protect data while it is being used^Footnote1, have been gaining popularity.

What is Secure Multiparty Computation?

Secure Multiparty Computation (SMPC) is a technique for combining information from different privacy zones to obtain insights on the combined data without having to reveal the raw data to the involved parties. It has evolved from a theoretical curiosity introduced by Andrew Yao's Millionaires problem^Footnote2 in the 1980s to an important tool for building large-scale privacy-preserving applications.^Footnote3

To illustrate the concept, Bob and Alice want to know if they are being paid the same but do not want to ask this awkward question. They buy four lockable suggestion boxes, each labelled with a dollar amount per hour: 10, 20, 30, 40. Bob earns $20/hr, so he only has a key to unlock the box labelled 20. Alice earns $30/hr; she only has a key to unlock the box labelled 30. Both Bob and Alice, unseen to the other, puts a slip of paper in each box indicating 'yes' or 'no.' For example, Alice puts 'no' into 10, 20, 40 and 'yes' into 30 for the $30/hr she makes. Bob unlocks the 20 box and learns that Alice is not paid $20/hr, but still does not know if her hourly rate is $10, $30 or $40. Alice unlocks the 30 box and learns that Bob does not make $30 an hour but does not know if his hourly rate is $10, $20 or $40. -- This is called 'oblivious transfer.' The ability to do oblivious transfers is the basis for performing SMPC.^Footnote4

SMPC is a method of distributed computing and cryptography^Footnote5 that combines data transformation (encryption) with specialized software. It enables multiple parties who do not trust each other, or any common third party, to jointly work with data that depends on all of their private inputs while keeping that data encrypted. Participants know only the results of the collaboration, and not the specific data others contributed. This enables collaboration between trusted partners or even between competitors.

SMPC is often assumed to require the participation of multiple organizations; however, the specific requirement is for multiple privacy zones, i.e., two or more domains with different sets of privacy restrictions. Multiple privacy zones exist across multiple organizations with independent data owners, but they may also exist within a single organization across teams, departments, and/or jurisdictions.

Parties are trusted to adhere to the protocol. If a party is not trusted, additional measures, outside the scope of this paper, are required to prevent malicious or covert breach attempts.

Strengths

• Simultaneously achieves privacy, obliviousness, and authenticity
  • Eliminates the need to trust a third-party data broker to access and process the data
  • Allows inference on encrypted data: the model owner never sees the client's private data and therefore cannot leak or misuse it
• Eliminates trade-off between data usability and data privacy, i.e., since the raw data is encrypted, there is no need to mask or drop any features in order to share and process it
• Opens new opportunities for enterprise collaborations that were not previously possible due to regulation or risk
• Confidentiality levels similar to Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) but less computationally expensive and complex

Challenges

• SMPC techniques are extremely complex, requiring comprehensive, often complicated, cryptography; thus, it is difficult for non-experts to understand or implement.
• Inability to see the input data may foster suspicion
• If functions are not carefully crafted and tested, security can be broken
• Significant computational overhead due to the complexity and distributed nature. Cost varies greatly depending on the collaboration required (e.g., number of parties, usage of different cloud providers) and the need for protection against malicious parties
• Sensitive to latency between nodes (Krikken, 2019)
• Requires additional infrastructure, which will add to the project planning and total cost of ownership calculation (Byun, 2019)

Why is it important?

According to the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, U.S. cybersecurity in both the public and private sectors is at continual risk and should expect increasing attacks. Organizations rich with data and intellectual property (IP) are prime targets. Attackers often target this 'Crown Jewel'^Footnote6 data because of its value and the potential for disruption (Enveil).

Organizations are increasingly concerned about data security in several scenarios, including:

• collecting and retaining sensitive personal information.
• processing personal information in external environments, such as the cloud; and
• information sharing, such as sharing and working on sensitive data in distributed settings, from healthcare to finance (Krikken, 2019).

SMPC can address and alleviate these concerns, by allowing organizations to compliantly, securely, and privately share insights on distributed data without ever exposing or moving it.

This is important because the increasingly distributed nature of customer data means many organizations do not generate the necessary levels of data on their own to derive the unbiased insights required to provide new experiences, open new revenue streams and apply new business models. SMPC enables secure collaboration to provide mutual benefit to all parties, while preserving privacy and confidentiality.

Real World Applications

Though it is still emerging and there are challenges, SMPC is poised to significantly disrupt the enterprise data exchange space and to allow successful data sharing solutions amongst distrusting data owners. Listed below are notable successful deployments.^Footnote7

• Danish Sugar Beets Auction, the first successful example of SMPC deployment, in 2008, where the privacy of farmer bids for contracts was assured
• Boston Women's Workforce Council^Footnote8 Gender / Wage Gap Studies, first conducted in 2016, analyzing payroll data from multiple employers, to serve as a roadmap for change for the city and its employers
• Estonian government study in 2015, analyzing tax and education records to determine if working part-time while studying increased failure rates^Footnote9

Use Cases

SMPC is very popular for use cases where organizations need to share data with, and/or analyze data from, multiple parties without disclosing their data and/or their analytics model to each other.

This list illustrates the range and scale of SMPC applications.

• Collaboration with disparate parties, e.g., sharing citizen data amongst government departments and/or financial institutions; sharing electronic medical records amongst hospitals, pharmacies, insurance manufacturers
• Distributed data mining: collecting private data from independent data sources to learn something that is not possible from a single source, e.g., finding fraudulent taxpayers via private business data or other taxpayer data
• Key management: safeguarding authentication keys as they are being used
• Cloud computing: data exchange, data analytics, and ML across multiple, unknown cloud providers
• Multi-network security monitoring across entities to aggregate private data
• Spam filtering on encrypted email
• Medical discovery, e.g., disease or virus contact tracing apps, combining data of many hospitals for genomics research
• Satellite collision avoidance without disclosing its location

Conclusion

The awareness that personal data can be compromised in a data breach or can be abused by companies whose interests do not align with those of their users, is increasing. New regulations make holding personal data a liability risk for companies. SMPC has emerged as a powerful and versatile technique to gain insights from sharing data without ever exposing it directly.

Although there is no single product or technique that can satisfy every data security requirement, SMPC can be used as one defense alongside other data protection measures, such as data masking, and other privacy-preserving techniques, such as differential privacy and homomorphic encryption.

What's Next?

Gartner expects SMPC to be transformational in the next 5-10 years (Lowans, 2020). In order to be prepared, considering the amount of private data that many organizations hold, and the pressure for that data to be safeguarded, an interested organization should steadily continue to research SMPC and other privacy-preserving data protection techniques.

Related Topics: data anonymization, differential privacy, homomorphic encryption, trusted execution environments / confidential computing, federated learning

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References

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Statistics Canada's chatbot, 2-A, can currently be used to help Canadians find information related to the census.

2-A allows you to

• get answers to your questions without having to navigate various frequently asked questions web pages
• interact with census data in real time without having to wait in a queue.

2-A is available 24 hours a day to provide support.

What type of question can I ask the chatbot?

At this time, 2-A is programmed to only answer questions related to the census. Here are a few topics covered:

• general information:
  • Census of Population
  • Census of Agriculture
  • census jobs
• definitions of census questionnaire content
• alternate formats being offered for the census content
• confidentiality and privacy policies surrounding the census
• troubleshooting tips for the online census questionnaire.

How should I ask my question to the chatbot?

We understand there are multiple ways to ask a question. We recommend that you ask 2-A one question at a time. Questions should be clear and simple (for example, What is an invitation letter? What is the census deadline?) to help 2-A recognize what you are looking for.

Please be patient as 2-A is learning from your interactions.

If at any point during the conversation you wish to start over, type "start over."

Official languages

Statistics Canada respects the Official Languages Act and is committed to ensuring that information is equally available in both official languages, English and French.

The chatbot is available in English or French. When a conversation with the chatbot is initiated, it will ask the user to confirm their preferred language. Once a language is selected, the chatbot will not be able to change its language or detect questions in the other language during the same conversation.

Privacy

Statistics Canada is committed to respecting the privacy of individuals. Although information provided to Statistics Canada is subject to the provisions of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act and will be kept confidential, we ask that you do not share any personal information with the chatbot. Please note conversations are recorded in the form of a transcript for the purpose of assessing quality of the service and to meet user needs. These transcripts will be retained by Statistics Canada for a three-month period.

General enquiries

For general enquiries on the chatbot, or for any questions the chatbot was unable to supply answers to, please contact us.

Before each census, Statistics Canada conducts engagement activities to facilitate the sharing of data users', and interested parties across Canada, views on the census dissemination strategy.

Consultative engagement objectives

The consultative engagement activities will provide opportunities for you to provide feedback and indicate your satisfaction with the 2021 Census of Population dissemination and strategy, its product lines and service suite within the Census Program at Statistics Canada. The results will inform decisions on the 2026 Census of Population dissemination and release strategy, its products and its services.

How to get involved

Individuals who wish to participate should contact us at statcan.censusconsultation-consultationrecensement.statcan@statcan.gc.ca.

Additional information about the engagement activities can be accessed from the Census of Population Program Consultation webpage.

Statistics Canada is committed to respecting the privacy of consultative engagement participants. All personal information created, held or collected by the agency is kept strictly confidential; it is protected by the Privacy Act. For more information on Statistics Canada's privacy policies, please consult the Privacy notice.

Results

Summary results of the engagement initiatives will be published online in Fall 2024.