The Canadian government officially released COVID Alert, its exposure notification app, on Friday. Ontario is the first province to use it with plans to implement it in the Atlantic provinces and B.C. in the near future (other provinces may follow). I posted several tweets about the app, including one that received hundreds of likes and retweets indicating that I have installed it (the tweet included links to the Apple and Android versions of the app). Given the interest, this post expands on the tweet by explaining what the app does and doesn’t do and why I think the government has done a good job of addressing many associated concerns.
Archive for August 2nd, 2020

Law Bytes
Episode 266: Justin Safayeni on the Ontario Government's Overnight Evisceration of Access to Information
byMichael Geist

April 27, 2026
Michael Geist
Ep. 265 – Jason Millar on Claude Mythos, Project Glasswing, and the Governance Crisis in Frontier AI
April 20, 2026
Michael Geist
March 30, 2026
Michael Geist
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Michael Geist on Substack
Recent Posts
The Government Doubles Down on News Sector Support: Fiscal Update Opens the Door to Tens of Millions in Tax Credits for Bell, Rogers and Corus
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The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 266: Justin Safayeni on the Ontario Government’s Overnight Evisceration of Access to Information
AI Without Canada: Why the Heritage Committee’s AI Report Could Lead to Less Canadian Content in the Training Data
Addressing the AI Policy Challenge: My Appearance before the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications

