Group Sues Ottawa Over ArriveCan Rights Violations, ‘Unlawful Quarantine’ of Canadians

A smartphone set to the opening screen of the ArriveCan app is seen in a file photo. (The Canadian Press/Giordano Ciampini)

An application for a class-action lawsuit has been filed in the Federal Court against Canada’s Attorney General over the ArriveCan app.

Filed Feb. 16, the lawsuit argues the app was a violation of Canadians’ rights and that technical failures led to the “unlawful quarantine” of thousands during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Consumer Law Group has launched a class action lawsuit against the Attorney General of Canada for having negligently contracted, developed, and implemented the ArriveCAN application,” said a release from Consumer Law Group.

“It is alleged that this conduct resulted in at least 10,200 travellers being subjected to an unlawful quarantine upon arrival at a port of entry due to glitches with the ArriveCAN app.”

The lawsuit is based around Quebec residents E. Sabbag and D. Rossner, who were told to wrongfully quarantine because of the ArriveCan app, which was used to obtain health information, including COVID-19 vaccination status, of travellers entering Canada.

From June 28 to July 20, 2022, around 10,200 Canadians received faulty instructions from ArriveCan to quarantine, despite having not tested positive for COVID-19, according to a report from the auditor general. While the glitch was eventually fixed, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner determined that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) violated the Privacy Act by not taking “all reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of the personal information it used for an administrative purpose.”

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All Canadians who travelled to Canada between Nov. 21, 2020 and Oct. 1, 2022 who used ArriveCan and were wrongly instructed to quarantine for COVID-19 are encouraged to join the class-action. Those Canadians can fill out a form on the Consumer Law Group’s website, the group said.

The ArriveCan app has come under intense scrutiny in recent months, particularly after Auditor General Karen Hogan released her damning report on Feb. 12. She found that several government agencies did not follow proper management and contracting practices when it came to the app’s development, and that key records around the development processes and financial decisions were missing.

The report estimated ArriveCan cost $59.5 million, but said that figure could be inaccurate given a high level of missing information on the app’s procurement and development process.

“I am deeply concerned by what this audit didn’t find. We didn’t find records to accurately show how much was spent on what, who did the work, or how and why contracting decisions were made,” Ms. Hogan said during a press conference.

On Feb. 21, the Standing Committee on GovernmentOperations and Estimates passed a motion calling for the IT firm behind ArriveCan to appear and testify or face arrest by the Commons’ sergeant-at-arms. The two-man company GC Strategies received $19.1 million for work on the app, despite subcontracting all the work to other companies.