S4-Episode 3: No government ID: Navigating homelessness, identity, and privacy

Patricia Kosseim:

Hello, I'm Patricia Kosseim, Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, and you're listening to Info Matters, a podcast about people, privacy, and access to information. We dive into conversations with people from all walks of life and hear real stories about the access and privacy issues that matter most to them.

Hello, listeners, and welcome to another episode of Info Matters. For many of us, a health card or a driver's license is just another card in our wallet. But for people experiencing homelessness, government-issued ID documents are harder to come by, without them, accessing stable housing, vital services, and employment opportunities can be an extra challenge. It's estimated that on any given night, at least 35,000 Canadians experience homelessness, turning to emergency shelters or sleeping outside. Under these conditions, keeping track of essential ID like birth certificate or social insurance number can be difficult. For people without a fixed address, updating or replacing ID documents, a seemingly simple task, can be a monumental challenge.

Missing documents, service fees, access, and mobility constraints. These all add up. Creating a cycle that's hard to break. Social stigma about homelessness can raise additional unseen barriers. Individuals may be hesitant to share details about their situation or personal information for fear of judgment or discrimination. Yes, privacy is a fundamental human right, but what does it mean for people experiencing homelessness, and how do we navigate the complexities of providing services to people who need them the most while safeguarding their personal information and their personal dignity?

In this episode, we'll be exploring questions surrounding homelessness, privacy, identity, and human dignity. My guess is Robert Fabes. He's a registered psychotherapist in addition to counseling clients in his private practice. He's an addictions and trauma counselor at the Ottawa Mission. The mission provides food, clothing, and shelter to address immediate needs while collaborating with community partners in the city of Ottawa to prioritize long-term solutions for poverty and homelessness. In the interest of full disclosure, Robert and I attended law school together, and we're old friends, so this episode is a bit of a reunion of sorts. Rob, welcome to the show. It's so great to see you in studio today.

Robert Fabes:

Thanks for having me, Pat, and thanks to you in your office for giving some time to this very important topic. Thank you.

PK:

Rob, you started your career in the corporate world working as in-house counsel and general counsel for companies like Toronto Stock Exchange and Canada Post. What led you to switch career paths to psychotherapy, mental health, and addictions counseling?

RF:

I was fortunate that when I left Canada Post, I was in a position to reflect on where I wanted to go next and what I wanted to do, and I really did take the opportunity to think about where I could find meaning in my own life. So I thought, "What was it about being a lawyer for 30 years? What were the things that really motivated me and kept me engaged?" And I realized there were two things that I really enjoyed. One was problem solving, and the other one was empowering people to do their best. Thinking back, my BA is in psychology, and I worked in social services way, way back, even before law school, and I started thinking about maybe that's the path I wanted to go down. St. Paul University has a master's program that's specifically in counseling, psychotherapy, and spirituality, and I went to an info session. I liked what I heard, and now here I am.

PK:

With a PhD that you recently completed. Congratulations, Rob.

RF:

I did, and that PhD is very significant for me. My whole PhD and my master's thesis as well was all about meaning exploration with people experiencing homelessness, but from their perspective. I used their experience and their feedback to develop meaning-based programming for them to help them with some of the mental health challenges they were facing. So that really gave me an opportunity to put in practice my belief that any type of intervention with this population needs to start with, what's their perspective on it? What's their experience? What is it that they want?

PK:

What are some common misconceptions about homelessness that people who haven't experienced it firsthand might have?

RF:

I think there's several misconceptions. One is that there's some underlying mental health issue. That anybody who's homeless must be suffering from addiction. A lot of misconceptions circle around the motivation of these people, "Oh, they're lazy. They're just looking for a handout." All of that, when the reality is, you can't paint a broad brush stroke of what characterizes a person experiencing homelessness. We've had government executives become homeless. We've had tech millionaires come through and who are homeless, people who have had no history of mental health issues, who may have just experienced a really bad relationship breakdown, and that triggers a set of events that then leads them to experiencing homelessness. So at the end of the day, I could experience homelessness, and I don't think that that is the general conception out there.

PK:

For someone who works with this population and serves them in the capacity that you do, what insights do you have about what privacy means for them? What does privacy mean for people experiencing homelessness, and how important is it to them in relation to other things in their life?

RF:

It's a good question. It signals to me and to the population that your office is looking at this from their perspective, and that's so fundamental to making meaningful change in the area and addressing some of the problems that you raised in your introduction. So from their perspective, and look, when you had asked me to do this podcast, I went to the clients at the mission and we talked about this. We had a discussion about what privacy means to them and how important it is to them. For them, they are much more focused on control of their personal information. They're less concerned about the security of their personal information. They want to be able to have access to it. They're much more concerned with their image being used. They are very sensitive to the fact that being identified as a shelter resident. They're sensitive to the stigma that brings, especially when they try to access certain services, especially localized services.

Ontario works here in Ottawa, or ODSP, Ontario Disability Supplemental Plan. It's another level of social assistance provided by the government of Ontario. So to get that, though, there's a 30-page form that needs to be filled out by you and your doctor, et cetera, et cetera. In terms of privacy, though, and people experiencing homelessness, their experiences, that in most cases, as soon as somebody sees an address of a shelter as their address, they start being treated differently. So that's of concern to them. Their location, where they reside, that's more important to them than, for example, their social insurance number being protected.

PK:

So even just an address is sensitive information for them.

RF:

Yeah, much more sensitive.

PK:

Interesting.

RF:

Look, I don't think twice about giving out my address. My address is my address, but to this population, it does affect how they feel. They are treated and viewed by others who associate that address with a shelter.

PK:

The City of London in Ontario has developed a chronic homelessness artificial intelligence tool that, as I understand it, helps predict the likelihood of someone becoming chronically homeless and targets resource allocations for the shelter system accordingly. From your experience, Rob, what do you think are some of the ethical concerns with this kind of novel approach?

RF:

I read the article about the City of London's initiative, which I also understand. There's a couple of other pilot projects in Canada and the states that are using this tool. One of my initial concerns was consent to participate. It said that almost 4,000 people who consented to participate, but my understanding is not that if you don't participate, that you're not going to get service. I know, for example, in the shelter system here in Ottawa, there is a consent that clients of the shelter are asked to sign when they come into the shelter, but not signing the consent does not prevent them from accessing services. So my assumption is that the shelter workers, the social workers in the City of London are still working with those people who didn't consent to participate in order to help them meet the challenges that are affecting their ability to access housing.

So that was one thing I was concerned about. Then the information is used by the actual service providers to target the interventions. The AI tool identifies, but then it's over to the people who have feet on the ground to actually use that information to help these people who are at risk of becoming chronically homeless. The tool identifies and then it lets people do assessments of people, which I think is great. I think that's a good use of the tool. I didn't find that the tool, as described, was overly intrusive. It took existing data that was part of the administration of the shelter system in that city, so it wasn't asking for anything more. That again, I think, is very important.

The tool, though, doesn't capture all the factors that contribute to becoming homeless. It doesn't purport to either. So my only concern would be, what about identifying people who may have these other risk factors so that they could benefit from intervention as well? I think the tool, if the people on the ground, the people who are working in the shelters, the social workers, if they're finding this helpful and they're finding that they can prevent chronic homelessness in more situations than not, I think it's a fantastic tool.

PK:

So if I can summarize, then things like appropriate consent, things like non-invasive collection of personal information, human oversight, and intervention as opposed to purely automated decision-making, and things like equitable access are all things that you look at and consider in assessing how useful this tool might be and recognizing that it could, in some instances, be very helpful in allocating resources to where it's most needed for this population. The proviso being that the AI tool, while helpful, is not infallible. It may not encompass all of the risk factors and may not identify all of the people in need of services, but that shouldn't prevent the city from extending services to who aren't identified, for instance.

RF:

That's exactly right. I've read about the City of London in other situations and that they continue to be at the fore of trying to solve the issue of homelessness.

PK:

What are some of the challenges people experiencing homelessness face when trying to obtain or replace their ID documents?

RF:

So some of the challenges include that you often need ID in order to be able to get ID. Even something as simple as to obtain some ID, you need a valid address, and it's taken a while for some organizations to recognize the shelter as a valid address. But, as we talked about earlier, that in and of itself is concerning to some clients. Other barriers are just because of the reality of experiencing homelessness, and, Pat, you alluded to this in your introduction, they don't have access to their own historical documentation. I can give you a real-life example. So in order to access your tax records through Canada Revenue Agency, they have a process. There's a series of questions that an agent will ask a client, and at the end of those questions, there's always a question about a line item of a historical tax return that's been filed.

Our clients don't have access to them. They can't go online, and they don't have the paper records because that's been lost in an eviction, for example, and CRA will not give them access to their account. There's a whole other process that they will have to go through. We're talking now weeks of delay. That delay has real-life consequences. Now, in the city of Ottawa, you cannot get on the housing registry, and you cannot become eligible for housing subsidies with without having your current taxes filed. While I appreciate what Canada Revenue Agency is trying to protect this information, but there's actual real-life immediate consequences. Now it's a block to be able to access housing.

PK:

So there's obviously practical issues and obstacles in obtaining, updating, or replacing ID, but tell us how important is ID itself to their sense of dignity and their sense of self-worth as individuals.

RF:

So in these instances where ID becomes a necessity in order to obtain services, it directly affects their sense of self-worth. It sort of becomes this vicious circle. So let's say a client who has successfully re-obtained their ID. So they're living in a shelter, and in the middle of the night, they go to the washroom. They've left their wallet in their room, and their wallet gets stolen. So they now have to go through the whole process again to re-obtain the ID. So not only do they have to deal with that practical reality, now they're feeling once again lesser in the eyes of society.

So they're dealing with that, and then they're dealing with their own perception of their self-worth, "How was I so stupid to have done that? Why didn't I bring it with me?" It's so complicated and pervasive. That the practical realities of having to have ID then translate into the person's sense of self-worth and their own self-image. It is very significant, Pat. It's very important to them. Some of the clients who are living in the shelter sleep with their ID on them. That's how fundamental it becomes to their sense of where they fit in the world.

PK:

So Rob, tell us about the ID Project at the Ottawa Mission.

RF:

The ID program at the Ottawa mission, and thankfully, Pat, there are ID clinics, we call them, at various social service agencies across the city. I know that similar programs exist in other cities across Canada. That's good news. We, as helpers, as service providers, understand how fundamental an issue this is. So that's fantastic. So the ID clinics then are there to help clients navigate the complexities of re-obtaining ID. Our clinic is done in collaboration with the faculty of law at the University of Ottawa. A couple of students come on site, so our clients don't have to go there. They come on site, and they work with the clients to help fill out forms. So our clients benefit from their expertise. They get the benefit of the students having done this multiple times.

They also know the intricacies of all the forms that have to be filled out. On top of that, there's also an added benefit that the actual lawyer at the University of Ottawa who works with these students, they're in a position to be able to sign any necessary affidavits, for example, attesting to loss or to theft, which is really helpful. The other thing that we've recognized is that sometimes some of our shelter clients are more comfortable sharing their personal information with somebody who's not an employee of the shelter. So for them, there's some additional comfort in knowing that this person from University of Ottawa. They're the only ones who are going to be seeing my information, not an Ottawa mission staff.

PK:

Who they deal with on a day-to-day basis.

RF:

That's exactly right, Pat. So it goes to this whole idea of autonomy, and it gives them that opportunity to exercise autonomy in terms of who they choose to share their information with in the midst of the chaos that they're experiencing.

PK:

I remember when I was a law student providing legal aid at the Women's Centre in Montreal and providing this kind of support to women in need. So a special shout out to our students at U of O who are starting out their career on the right foot, helping people, and that's what it's all about. So thank you for that example. You alluded to this before, but obviously, and first and foremost, our office is the first to recognize that privacy isn't an absolute right. Privacy is something that, obviously, you modulate depending on the circumstances, and there's always trade-offs to be made in terms of the personal information that you provide in order to obtain services, for instance. So for this particular population of persons experiencing homelessness who obviously have basic needs at stake, how can we strike a balance between providing them with the access to the services they desperately need while also protecting their personal information?

RF:

I think the first place to start is to talk to these people about that balance. My experience, and this is something that I asked the clients, is, for them, the access to their own information in order to be able to get the government service is much more important than the protection of that particular information, healthcare number, social insurance number, tax records, birth certificate. Because for them, and it goes to what you said, Pat, having that information allows them to meet their basic needs.

PK:

It's the gateway.

RF:

It is.

PK:

Yeah.

RF:

Their picture, the fact that they live in the shelter, they're more concerned about that than this other stuff.

PK:

You mentioned their image a couple of times.

RF:

Yeah.

PK:

Again, it goes back, I guess, to that sense of stigma, their image being associated with the shelter or them being associated with the address of a shelter.

RF:

So it's two things. One of the things they're concerned about is facing additional stigma. Most of our clients, you're never going to know by looking at them that they're experiencing homelessness. They take pride in their hygiene. They take pride in what they wear. That's not going to tell you. So they are able to control that aspect of how others see them. The address, though, is a giveaway, and it's most keenly felt when they're dealing with a government office, whether it's municipal, provincial, or federal. They will tell you. They'll say, "Look, I'll go in one day, and the person at the counter is so helpful and so kind. I'll go in the next day with another person, and there's a wall that goes up." So yes, they're very sensitive to that. The other things, it's not just stigma. There's also their family members may not know that they're at a shelter, and so as soon as their image is associated with the shelter, that then creates a whole new set of dynamics that they had chosen not to deal with. Now, they may be forced to deal with, and it's a real privacy issue.

PK:

One of the things that our office has been advocating for is to take a broader expanse of privacy rights. As you know, all of our privacy laws are based on privacy rights of individuals, and yet we've been encouraging a broader exploration to look at privacy rights or at least privacy interests of groups, particularly marginalized groups, and wondering what your thoughts are, how conceptually, but also practically, how can we move towards this broader conception that groups have privacy interests too, and how do we go about protecting that privacy?

RF:

Even within groups, if you have a set of principles for a given group, people experiencing homelessness, there's still going to be individuals within that group whose needs aren't necessarily going to be met by those group principles. So whenever I hear that, and again, this is my bias, this is my experience, I am on the ground, and I work with individuals. Yes, they're all part of this group, but within that group, individuals experience homelessness different, and so they will experience privacy differently even though they're part of the same group. So that's going to be very challenging for your office to navigate.

However, part of your question was, "So, okay, Robert, how do we go about this?" Talk to these people. We're seeing more and more. There are groups that come together specifically to advocate on behalf of people with that group experience. So in Ottawa, for example, there's the Lived Experience Advisory Council that has been formed by people who have and who are experiencing homelessness, and they have a set of guiding principles that they ask policymakers and other organizations to look at and consider when they're looking at providing service or developing policies for people who are experiencing homelessness.

So that would be the place to start. Their sole purpose is to provide other organizations, "Hey, these are the things we experience. This is what's important to us. This is what we would like to see." And so that would be a fantastic place for your office to start. I think it will give you that additional perspective that's going to be necessary for your office to be able to bring some types of boundaries to the topic. It's so refreshing for me to even hear an organization such as yours, even that you're thinking about these things, and that is so welcome. I would say to you, "That's how you put your best foot forward."

PK:

Thanks for that, Rob. That's really great advice there, and as you say, a good place to start. As you know, Ontario and other jurisdictions around the world are moving towards digital ID systems that use electronic versions of government-issued identification to enable people, as you say, to prove who they are, both online and in person, in order to access services. As Ontario and others develop and roll out these digital ID programs, how important is it in your view to include individuals with lived experience of homelessness in the development process, the conceptualization, and decision-making about these kinds of initiatives?

RF:

It's essential.

Look, I'm not saying anything that you and your office don't know, Pat, because you already identified that in your comments to the government on this initiative. So yes, absolutely. It's key for a number of reasons to see the practical effects about it. But also, not surprisingly, this is going to be one of those groups because they're not going to be the only group who aren't going to be able to access this service. As wonderful as this service can be, what are you going to do for those people who can't access this service? And it is going to happen that people experiencing homelessness aren't going to have...

PK:

Mobile phone.

RF:

Exactly. They're not going to have the phone. Or if they have the phone, they're going to have limited access to the internet, et cetera, et cetera.

PK:

What alternatives?

RF:

Exactly. What alternatives? That's a huge question. It's a very real consequence of moving towards digital ID. How are the administrators of the programs who are now going to accept digital ID, how are they going to be trained to deal with the people who can't access it? What kind of sensitivity training is going to be provided to those people that, now, this does not become an additional source of stigma? It's bad enough that I'm living at a shelter. Now I don't have a phone. How is the person at the counter going to interact with me?

PK:

Differently.

RF:

Exactly. So I appreciate this is being developed and the government is actually asking for this type of feedback. They're doing that now before they implement the program, and that's exactly what they should be doing. I don't know that the sponsors of the program and the government have gone and spoken to groups that may be differentially affected by this.

PK:

This has been great, Rob. Wonderful conversation. Any parting words of advice for my office before we wrap up?

RF:

You've already indicated that you're there, and that is, go talk to the people who are affected by the things that your office is thinking about, whether it's people experiencing homelessness or other groups. Go talk to them directly. It's great that you're talking to me. I'm not experiencing homelessness. Talk to people who are experiencing homelessness. First of all, they will be honored that you're taking the time, and they are going to be so forthcoming with sharing with you the reality of how these things affect them, and you're going to give them an opportunity to be seen and heard as people. The other thing is, I would encourage you to talk to your counterparts in other government agencies. At the end of the day, this is not just a privacy issue. You are trying to do your part, but the solution is way beyond your office. So I would encourage you to have these types of discussions with your colleagues in other groups.

PK:

Excellent. Rob, thank you so much for joining me.

RF:

Oh my gosh. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this opportunity, Pat.

PK:

It's clear that there are no easy answers, but community-based solutions like ID clinics and potentially technologies are some ways we can start to break down systemic barriers and ensure equal access to government-issued identification for all. For listeners who want to learn more about digital ID and privacy and transparency in a modern government, I encourage you to visit our website at ipc.on.ca. You can also call or email our office for assistance and general information about Ontario's access and privacy laws. That's a wrap for today, folks. Thanks for listening to this episode of Info Matters, and until next time.

I'm Patricia Kosseim, Ontario's Information and Privacy Commissioner, and this has been Info Matters. If you enjoy the podcast, leave us a rating or review. If there's an access or privacy topic you'd like us to explore on a future episode, we'd love to hear from you. Send us a tweet at IPCinfoprivacy or email us at @email. Thanks for listening, and please join us again for more conversations about people, privacy, and access to information. If it matters to you, it matters to me.