A contract awarded to Advanis by the Public Health Agency of Canada is part of a two-survey contract that gauged the socioeconomic, cognitive, and motivational factors associated with low uptake of the COVID-19 vaccine in eleven vulnerable populations.

According to the contract, the primary objective of the surveillance project was to establish a surveillance tool to better understand COVID-19 coverage-related information in select vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations:

The information collected focused on:

• COVID-19 Immunization Status
• Intent to get vaccinated for those not yet vaccinated
• Reasons for non-vaccination (including barriers) for COVID-19
• Knowledge, attitudes and beliefs toward COVID-19 vaccines
• Sources of information on COVID-19 vaccines accessed by respondents
• Inequalities in vaccination uptake by socio-demographic characteristics

Sheila describes how information from unwitting cell phone users turned over to PHAC 'contains the aggregated data for the indicator of time spent away from your primary location,' among other things.

FULL REPORT by @SheilaGunnReid: https://t.co/bJP8woi4SR pic.twitter.com/naqXag9bjw

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) July 22, 2022

The PHAC came under fire after it was revealed the agency surveilled approximately 30 million Canadians for COVID compliance by collecting cell phone location data.

The full PHAC report can be read here.

Advantis was paid $296,072.43 to poll a sample of 5,703 Canadians aged 18 and above.