Open Sharing Icons

DHDP Response: Responsible Use of Artificial Intelligence in Health and Health Research

AI must be developed, deployed and used within strong privacy and data protection frameworks for health care

The Terry Fox Research Institute and the Digital Health & Discovery Platform (DHDP) welcome the October 29, 2026 news release from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and the accompanying Resolution adopted by Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial privacy regulators. We share the Commissioner’s view that privacy matters to Canadians, especially when it comes to sensitive health information, and that AI must be developed, deployed and used within strong privacy and data protection frameworks.

As both health researchers and AI developers, we take the call for accountability seriously while also recognizing the need to accelerate research and improve health care for Canadians.

Across Canada, hospitals generate vast amounts of health data that could advance personalized treatments, yet much of it remains in institutional silos because sharing it carries real risks. However, our work with researchers shows that advances in personalized medicine, patient care and treatment won’t happen without sharing data.

Breaking down institutional and jurisdictional silos is essential to enabling AI research at the scale and diversity needed to develop more robust, accurate and representative models. Bringing together high-quality data from diverse populations and institutions can help improve the quality and reliability of AI models, reduce bias and address gaps in representation.

To address this problem, we’re developing a made-in-Canada solution in collaboration with the people who will actually use it, to facilitate privacy-preserving data sharing for research focusing initially on cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Built on federated learning infrastructure for security, patient records stay within the institutions that hold them, and only the analytical tools and AI models move to the data. Each hospital retains its own governance process, and institutions retain control over their access policies and decisions.

We recognize that federated architecture alone cannot guarantee privacy. Through targeted innovation funding, we are testing the Platform in real-world research projects with healthcare institutions and Canadian technology companies, supported by technical assessments, security reviews and user feedback.

We welcome continued dialogue with regulators so that Canadians can benefit from AI-enabled research without compromising the privacy of their health information.

~30~

Resolution: https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/about-the-opc/what-we-do/provincial-and-territorial-collaboration/joint-resolutions-with-provinces-and-territories/res_20260915_aihealth/ Resolution of the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Information and Privacy Commissioners and Ombuds with responsibility for privacy oversight (“FPT Privacy Regulators”) adopted in Ottawa (Ontario) on September 15, 2026.

 

↑