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Evidence-based. Scholarly.
Thought-provoking.

A repository of evidence-based true stories of technology-related governance dilemma across various sectors shared by industry, policy and academic experts.

FEATURED CASE STUDIES

Can X-Road Be Travelled Abroad?
Digital Governance Beyond Estonia

Matt Malone

Estonia’s X-Road is widely acknowledged to be an impressive tool of digital governance. An open-source data exchange layer, complemented by a widely adopted digital identity program, it expanded state capacity while reducing data duplication, costs, fraud, cyber risk and bureaucratic burdens for citizens. Yet despite its success, X-Road has not been adopted by many other jurisdictions wholesale. This case study asks: why?

Where is the Gender Lens in Canada’s Cybersecurity Policy?

Hannah Bacon and Veronica Kitchen

This gendered analysis of Canada’s National Cyber Security Strategy (NCSS) explores why certain conceptions of national security become entrenched in policy. The case encourages discussion of why gender has been absent from Canada’s NCSS, and considers the consequences of failing to take technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) seriously.

Artificial Intelligence and Copyright: Balancing Innovation with Established Business Models in the Creative Industries

Ann Kristin Glenster

The case study sets out the dilemma between the need for generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) companies to train their GenAI models on vast amounts of data, scraped from the internet without regard for copyright holders’ right to control how their copyrighted works are used.

Public Investment, Private Gain:
Canada’s Role in the mRNA Vaccine Breakthrough

Natalie Raffoul and Sarah Hamm

This case study examines Canada’s under-recognized yet foundational role in the development of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Despite decades of public investment, Canada failed to secure access to the intellectual property (IP) underpinning this technology. When COVID-19 vaccines were urgently needed, Canada was forced to negotiate supply contracts from a position of weakness, with no domestic distribution rights or economic benefit from a technology it had helped create.

Was Nortel Worth More Dead than Alive?

Dan Ciuriak and Harry Deng

In June 2009, amid the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), Canada’s Conservative government faced a fateful decision: whether to bail out Nortel Networks, once a global telecommunications powerhouse, or allow it to fail. The responsibility fell to a senior official who concluded that Nortel was “worth more dead than alive.” This case study explores the decision-making process that led to Nortel’s liquidation, raising questions about industrial policy, technology sovereignty, and the role of anchor firms in innovation ecosystems.

RECENT CASE STUDIES

Contact Tracing or Constitutional Creep?
South Korea’s High-Tech Pandemic Gamble

Data Governance,  Health,  Human Rights,  Public Policy

Barry Appleton
This case study analyzes South Korea’s pioneering yet controversial use of digital contact tracing during COVID-19. Set against the backdrop of the Itaewon outbreak in May 2020, the case raises urgent questions about surveillance, rights and democratic accountability.

Canada’s Digital Sovereignty is Under Threat:
A National Strategy is Imperative

Data Governance,  Data Security,  Economy,  Security Governance

Muna Mohamed
Canada’s digital economy contributes more than CDN$220 billion annually to Canada’s GDP and employs 2.4 million Canadians. However, the lack of sovereign computing capacity leaves this sector vulnerable to the interests of foreign actors.

Too Fast, Too Fragile? The Governance Dilemmas of Digital Contraception in Canada

Data Governance,  Health,  Platform Governance

Marika Jeziorek and Natasha Tusikov
This case explores the governance dilemmas posed by digital contraceptive technologies through the lens of Health Canada’s 2024 decision to approve the Natural Cycles app as a Class II medical device.

Intellectual Property Policies Set Canada’s and South Korea’s AI Strategies on Diverging Trajectories

AI,  Economy,  Intellectual Property

James W. Hinton and Fabrice Blais-Savoie
The AI economy is emblematic of modern governance challenges. It is transnational, heavily concentrated, and often hard to conceptualize. The objective of this case is to provide a comparative perspective on two AI governance approaches and their outcomes.

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