Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fielded questions yesterday in his daily media briefing about contact tracing technology being considered by government.

It follows similar discussions in Newfoundland and Labrador this week about the protection of personal privacy in the use of such technology.

There are options available, says the province’s Privacy Commissioner.

Michael Harvey says Health Minister John Haggie this week referenced a “decentralized” system—one that does not involve a public body keeping track of where you’ve gone and who you’ve been in contact with.

He says they’re designed in such a way that your phone receives encrypted bits of information from other phones that it comes into contact with, but doesn’t store information on who owns the phone or where you’ve been. Instead, it can send an alert to those phones if you test positive.

However, other apps do collect information, which remains a serious concern—according to Harvey.

The minute databases of personal information are created, and questions need to be asked about “function creep,” says Harvey.

Those questions include: who holds the information and what is it being used for?

He questions if law enforcement could get a warrant to access the information, even though it was collected for reasons other than law enforcement.