Barry Appleton

In April 2020, deep into the global confusion surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the Republic of Korea stood out. As New York and Milan reeled, Seoul was relatively calm. At the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Vice Minister Kim Gang-lip reviewed real-time movement data of infected individuals, sourced from mobile phones and CCTV footage. The “epidemiological intelligence system” was already credited with suppressing multiple outbreaks without national lockdowns. But behind the scenes, a fierce debate was growing.

Muna Mohamed

Canada’s digital economy contributes more than CDN$220 billion annually to Canada’s GDP and employs 2.4 million Canadians. This sector’s growth has virtually outpaced the overall economy over the last decade. The digital economy is Canada’s most valuable sector; however, the lack of sovereign computing capacity leaves this sector vulnerable to the interests of foreign actors. Compared to other G7 countries, Canada has the least publicly available computing infrastructure.

Marika Jeziorek and Natasha Tusikov

This case explores the governance dilemmas posed by digital contraceptive technologies through the lens of Health Canada’s 2024 decision to approve the Natural Cycles app as a Class II medical device. Students are invited to grapple with complex regulatory questions: Should algorithmic fertility apps be governed as traditional medical devices? How should equity, transparency and risk be incorporated into digital health oversight?

James W. Hinton and Fabrice Blais-Savoie

This case study provides a comparative perspective on two AI governance approaches and their outcomes. In Canada, both federal and provincial AI policies involve partnerships with and funding of foreign corporations. They give very little attention to domestic innovation retention. By contrast, South Korea’s 2019 AI strategy focused on specializing and enabling domestic innovation. It also discouraged foreign acquisition of domestic firms.

Florian Kerschbaum

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Public Health Authority of Canada (PHAC) was trying to understand movement patterns of the population to optimize health services. PHAC approached mobile phone network providers, including Telus, requesting anonymized data about the movement patterns of their cell phone users. The data governance officer at Telus, Pam Snively, now faced a dilemma: to share and support PHAC, or not to share and protect Telus from negative legal and public perception consequences.