Ontario is looking at making regulatory changes that would extend the collection of race-based data about COVID-19 cases province-wide.

The province had granted some health units permission to begin collecting race-based data voluntarily and some have begun doing so, but critics argue it’s not enough.

A spokesperson for Health Minister Christine Elliott says the province was working with public health and privacy experts to collect it, but noted it would require changing regulation.

Meanwhile, legal experts and privacy advocates are raising alarms over potential privacy violations in allowing first responders to access personal health details of residents who have tested positive for COVID-19.

The groups critical of the order say first responders could make use of such data to target racialized and other marginalized communities.

In the US, public health officials discovered in April that the potentially lethal SARS-CoV-2 virus was disproportionately affecting black communities.