Questions re. Vaccine Attestation and cuScreen

September 8, 2021

Questions re. Vaccine Attestation and cuScreen

cuScreen Privacy Concerns

As we wrote in our update last week, we have heard from some CUASA members who expressed concern with the privacy agreement that you are asked to accept when accessing the cuScreen platform.

We sought clarification from the University administration on this, and here is the response we received from Deputy Provost Lorraine Dyke:

“cuScreen has been developed in partnership with Thrive Health Inc., a leading Canadian healthcare technology company with expertise in protecting personal health information and an integrator of healthcare information. Outside of Carleton’s customized cuScreen module, or care network, the Thrive solution is built to allow a user to consolidate all of their care networks into one application and provide a seamless connection across all patient journeys. As a result, their privacy notice includes references to collecting standard personal information related to health care management (e.g., birthdate, age, medical history). For the purposes of the cuScreen implementation, this information is not collected from the user, nor is it shared with Thrive by our system integration. The only personal information that has been shared is name, Carleton ID and email address. Phone number is also collected in the case of symptom reporting to facilitate follow up by university health and occupational safety personnel. Birthdate does appear on the government issued vaccination receipts in order for our personnel to validate the records. This information is not used for any other purposes.

Users have the option, however, to create a personal Thrive account and link that with other care networks, if they so choose, and as such, the data collection notice is required to account for those situations. If, at a time when the user is no longer part of the Carleton network or if the university is no longer required to collect screening and vaccination attestations, the user will have the choice to continue as a Thrive client with a personal account.

Thrive Health Inc. is a Vancouver-based company working with thousands of organizations within Canada, including Health Canada, BC Health, University of Toronto and the University of Calgary. All data provided or received through the platform is encrypted and the limited personal information is stored within Canada. Thrive Health Inc. follows data security and privacy standards that align with federal and provincial laws and guidelines such as PHIPA, FIPPA, HIPPA, PIPEDA, PCI, and NIST, and the solution has been fully reviewed by our privacy office and information security team which confirmed its compliance with applicable privacy standards.

Disclosure of information to third parties in the event of an acquisition or merger is standard business practice and is found in all applications. The university requires all suppliers to notify us in the event of an acquisition, and the terms of our agreement would legally allow us to discontinue the relationship, if undue risk or implementation practices contrary to the original terms of our agreement were to form part of the merger or acquisition.

Navigation within the app is also built around the principle of health care integration. While we continue to work with Thrive to enhance the user experience particular to cuScreen, there are instances where the user is returned to the home page COVID-19 Healthcare Centre. Users can easily return to cuScreen by selecting the Care Network option from the main menu if that occurs. The “Next Steps” section of cuScreen provides users with quick access to tasks they may need to complete upon login, such as the COVID-19 screening self-assessment, vaccination attestation, or symptom reporting. These tasks are not sequential or linked because each user may have unique situational requirements.”

 

Vaccine Proof for cuScreen

We also received questions from members who reside in Quebec and wondered if the QR codes they received could be used as proof of vaccination in the cuScreen system.

To this, the response we received from Dr. Dyke is that, like Ontario residents, Quebec residents will need to download their vaccination receipts and then upload them in cuScreen. Quebec residents can learn how to download their vaccination paperwork for attestation by clicking here. Ontario residents can do so at the link found here.

 

Attendance Taking and Contact Tracing

Finally, in a notice sent this morning to course instructors from Provost and VP (Academic) Jerry Tomberlin, it stated that if the cuScreen QR scanning system is not working, then course instructors will be required to take attendance for contact tracing purposes.

While it may be true that under the Occupational Health and Safety Act that health and safety is a shared responsibility, the Employer may not delegate health and safety tasks without proper consultations with Unions, and particularly with the Joint Health and Safety Committee.

CUASA members have been given no training or guidance for this new task. Taking attendance for their classes is an academic function, but the Employer is collecting this information for other purposes.

Any members who find that the cuScreen system is failing to meet the necessary standard of contact tracing requirements and who need to complete this duty for the Employer should report it to CUASA immediately. We also advise those members to exercise extreme care in safeguarding the information collected.