Data Governance & Ethics

Sara has over 18 years of experience in privacy law and began her practice at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario focusing exclusively on privacy, access to information and health privacy law. She currently leads the global privacy compliance program at Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan with responsibility for regulatory compliance and the management of privacy and related legal challenges. Sara is an active member of the Canadian Bar Association Privacy and Access Law Section Executive and was the chair of the Ontario Bar Association Privacy and Access to Information Law Section Executive. Sara is also an active volunteer in the health care sector, as past vice chair of the Board of Directors of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, Toronto Chapter and Across Boundaries, a community mental health centre in Toronto, and the legal representative on the Baycrest Research Ethics Board. She currently sits as the legal representative on the Women’s College Hospital Research Ethics Boards.

Claudiu Popa, CISSP, CIPP, PMP, CISA, CRISC, is a leading authority on risk management, personal information protection, data security strategy and author of four books including The Canadian Cyberfraud Handbook: A Professional Reference (Thomson Reuters) and Managing Personal Information: Insights on Corporate Risk and Opportunity for Privacy-Savvy Leaders (Thomson Reuters).

Claudiu is the co-founder of the KnowledgeFlow Foundation, a Canadian non-profit organization focused on cybersafety in the education sector, edtech innovation and the protection of personal information.

Claudiu was previously the Managing Director of the Canadian Cybercrime Information Centre at Seneca College where he led efforts to collect and analyze financial cybercrime information for public awareness and education.

For over 25 years, Claudiu has been an active participant in the development of standards, systems, and methods to improve cybersecurity education and protect information assets. He created AVAST, a healthcare security assessment process currently in use in Canada’s western provinces and continues to actively contribute to information security initiatives across diverse industry sectors in Canada and internationally.

He is a lecturer on enterprise privacy at the University of Toronto. Claudiu resides just outside Toronto with his wife and four young children.

Eric Rancourt is Director General of the Modern Statistical Methods and Data Science Branch at Statistics Canada (formerly known as the Methodology Branch). He has worked at Statistics Canada for 32 years and has occupied several roles such as Director General of Strategic Data Management, Director of International Cooperation, Director of Corporate Planning, Head of Research, Production Manager of Survey Methodology Journal, and Researcher. His main areas of work have been on treatment of nonresponse, estimation, gathering, safeguarding and use of administrative and alternative data in statistical programs. Recently his work has been on frameworks for optimizing privacy and information, on data ethics, and on modern statistical designs.

He holds a BSc in Statistics from University Laval, a BA in Ancient Studies and in Medieval Studies, as well as a BA in philosophy from the University of Ottawa focusing on data ethics. He is Chair of the Board for the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI). He has been involved in many professional associations including the International Association for Survey Statisticians (IASS) and the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) and is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute ISI). He is also a member of the Statistical Society of Canada and the American Statistical Association. His recent papers are on admin data as a paradigm, the application of the scientific approach in National Statistical Organisations and on the use of alternative data collection methods.

Alton is the Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Corporate Compliance Officer at Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited (CTC), where he has worked for 4 years building the company’s Privacy and Compliance offices.  Prior to joining CTC, Alton worked in banking for 13 years, where he acted in increasingly progressive roles as Senior Legal Counsel, Outsourcing Officer, Corporate Secretary and Privacy Officer.  His interests include astronomy, basketball, religion and binge watching Netflix.

Kate has a background in social services where she treated youth with complex mental health and addictions issues. Her role involved developing detailed, treatment-focused program plans and seeing them through to completion. Kate brings many years of experience in the service industry to her role at Cambridge Forums. In her spare time, Kate enjoys good food and wine, all things true-crime related, and dance parties with her kids.