Bianca Wylie – Medium

2 days ago

The Canada Border Services Agency ArriveCAN App Should Go Away

If It Stays, It Must Be Voluntary. Not Mandatory. As Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said on June 28, 2022, the mandatory ArriveCAN app, launched because of, and during, the pandemic, might become a permanent part of how canadian borders are managed. And in this case, a mandatory one. Forcing…

Technology

8 min read

The Canada Border Services Agency ArriveCAN App Should Go Away

4 days ago

ArriveCAN — A Mandatory App/Web Process We Should Say No To

No Social License for this Shift Made in Crisis The ArriveCAN app/web process is something the government of Canada has likely wanted to implement since before the pandemic. So when the Minister of Public Safety of Canada, Marco Mendicino, says that it “might” become permanent as part of broader border…

Democracy

5 min read

ArriveCAN — A Mandatory App/Web Process We Should Say No To

Jun 24

The City of Toronto PayIt Procurement: Freedom of Information Requests, Fairness, and Transparency VI

A post in a series to understand and assess the procurement process followed for PayIt. This post is a straight copy/paste of a thread of tweets — this is an archival post to cover tweets from May 26-June 20, 2022 in hold mode w PayIt while waiting on two FOIs…

Technology

8 min read

The City of Toronto PayIt Procurement: Freedom of Information Requests, Fairness, and Transparency…

Jun 19

The City of Toronto PayIt Procurement: Freedom of Information Requests, Fairness, and Transparency V

A post in a series to understand and assess the procurement process followed for PayIt. This post is a straight copy/paste of a thread of tweets — this is an archival post to cover tweets from April 9-May 20 2022. *process note: when I did this transfer from twitter to…

Democracy

7 min read

Jun 14

DRAFT — Tech and Toronto City Budget Civic Tech Project

Origin Story and Direction — (Also known as, welcome, please join us, start here) Every Tuesday night, since March 2022, a group of us get together at Civic Tech Toronto to talk about technology and the City budget. For now, we’re mostly talking, trying to understand how much money the…

Democracy

7 min read

DRAFT — Tech and Toronto City Budget Civic Tech Project

May 30

COVID Alert App — Part 8, Ontario and Accountability, and Alternative Public Health Tech Approaches

Part of the State Capacity Story I am still working out a proper system map for how the COVID Alert app workflow goes. I am getting a lot of runaround in terms of finding out who at the province of Ontario is in charge of the provincial parts of the…

Covid 19

7 min read

COVID Alert App — Part 8, Ontario and Accountability, and Alternative Public Health Tech Approaches

May 10

COVID Alert App — Part 7, When We Talk About the App Not “Working”

Public Health Efficacy vs. Successful Tech Deployment On May 4, 2022, Canadian Senator Colin Deacon stood in the senate and spoke about COVID Alert, asking a colleague of his responsible for govt policy: “does our government have a plan to retire this application, and importantly, conduct a postmortem?” In early…

Accountability

6 min read

COVID Alert App — Part 7, When We Talk About the App Not “Working”

May 3

Reshuffling the ConnectTO Deck

Follow the Money. The Other Money. Our Money. And Assets. ConnectTO, the City of Toronto’s internet equity program, is headed to Executive Committee tomorrow, May 4, 2022. You can sign up to speak or send letters to the committee here (top left). I saw a flurry of activity on twitter…

Internet

8 min read

May 2

COVID Alert App — Part 6, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)

Industrial Enthusiasm Meets Governmental Pandemic Response Please see the first five posts in this series, and my recent oped in the Toronto Star, for general context. …

Covid 19

6 min read

COVID Alert App — Part 6, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED)

Apr 30

COVID Alert App Postmortem — Part 5, Enter The Commissioners

Oversight for Effectiveness But Where? Please see the previous pieces in this series and this recent oped in the Toronto Star Who Should Be Holding Health Canada Accountable? In trying to figure out who should be holding Health Canada accountable for shutting down the broken COVID Alert app, I had…

Covid 19

5 min read

COVID Alert App Postmortem — Part 5, Enter The Commissioners