MONTREAL — Former Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour and former Quebec Court of Appeal Justice Louise Otis are now helping Montreal-based contact tracing mobile app developer COVI Canada, it was announced Tuesday.
Arbour, who was also the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2004 to 2008, is joining the COVI mobile app project as honorary president of COVI Canada, and Otis will serve as chair of the non-profit organization’s board of directors.
“COVI Canada has a well-defined mission to protect the health, privacy and dignity of citizens. The application provides tools to empower citizens to take action on their personal well-being and that of our society. Its governance model is built around the core values of accountability and transparency. I believe in this project and am pleased to join in supporting the fight against Covid-19,” said Arbour in the news release.
Developed in Canada by a coalition of researchers and experts led by Yoshua Bengio of Mila – Quebec AI Institute, the COVI application identifies risk areas for Covid-19 exposure to enable targeted local interventions before there is an outbreak. It also helps to better understand how the novel coronavirus is transmitted, using an epidemiological model powered by artificial intelligence, says the release.
The COVI app adheres to the Montreal Declaration for the Responsible Development of AI and was developed with the support of UNESCO.
“The COVI application was developed by a coalition of experts in epidemiology, medicine, psychology and artificial intelligence. According to Oxford University, the approach used by COVI is the most effective in containing the pandemic and could have a significant impact on the number of lives saved. Moreover, it is a technological solution that will be open and accessible to all and which places the protection of human rights at the heart of its approach,” said Otis, in the news release.
COVI Canada does not collect any information that directly identifies the app user such as name, phone number or IP address, and the organization says data collected for the purpose of fighting the pandemic is stored in Canada and deleted on a regular basis. In addition, COVI Canada says the data collected will never be sold or used for commercial purposes nor surveillance or quarantine enforcement purposes.
For more information, please visit covicanada.org.
