Abstract

Sharing personal health data across jurisdictional boundaries in Canada is challenging under current privacy laws and governance structures. The Canada Health Act enshrines portability of health coverage, ensuring Canadians can access care across jurisdictions, but portability of health information is not yet a reality. Synthetic health data – artificially generated data that mirror real patient information without exposing individual identities – offers a promising solution enabling portability of insight across jurisdictions. This essay examines synthetic health data sources and generation methods, and analyzes policy, technical, and ethical considerations supporting its pan-Canadian analytic use, drawing on peer-reviewed research, gray literature, and government reports.