Who should be allowed to have access to race data?

Re Toronto calls for immediate collection of race-based and occupational data on COVID cases, June 2

Now that the province has mandated the collection of race and sociodemographic information for COVID-19, this article appears to reveal a difference of opinion on who should have access to and control of this data.

Camille Orridge, a senior fellow at the Wellesley Institute, appears to have assumed the role of spokesperson for racialized communities and is claiming some proprietary rights in any racebased data collected for the communities most affected by COVID-19. She states the following: “There are a number of things that must be answered before we come to the table to give up the data.” She further states, “We have researchers who have no connection to the communities having access to the data making their careers on the use of that data.” This suggests she believes that access should only be given to those, like herself, who identify as a racialized person. This proprietary approach to the data appears to be supported by Lllana James, the co-lead of REDE4BlackLives, a research and data collection protocol.

Arjumand Siddiqi, a professor at University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health, on the other hand, believes the data should be made available broadly so researchers can check the work of others, rebut flawed analyses and ask different kinds of questions.

It will be interesting to see which approach the government will choose.

Greg Sheehan, Mississauga