Gatineau, January 15, 2026 — The Competition Bureau Canada’s new report has found that consumers could save billions of dollars each year if they were able to easily and securely transfer their personal data from one service provider to another, arguing that stronger data portability rules could reduce switching frictions and improve market outcomes.
The Bureau’s report, Your Data, Your Control: How data portability can unlock competition and empower consumers, estimates that a data portability framework in the insurance sector could save Canadians between $1.1 billion and $3.8 billion annually. The Bureau said those savings would come both from consumers moving to less expensive insurance plans and from reducing the time spent comparing options and completing the switching process.
While the analysis uses insurance as a case study, the Bureau said the broader impact of data portability across the Canadian economy could be significantly larger, pointing to sectors such as banking, health care, and other data-intensive services where consumer switching remains difficult in practice.
The report also outlines what the Bureau described as key building blocks for a Canadian data portability framework. These include ensuring consumers have confidence in oversight bodies and understand how their data is used, as well as strong privacy safeguards, clear consent requirements, and high interoperability so that data can be shared safely and efficiently between different digital services.
The Bureau said Canada can also draw lessons from international models, including open banking initiatives in the United Kingdom and Australia’s Consumer Data Right, which aim to strengthen consumer control over data and enable easier switching.
Acting Commissioner of Competition Jeanne Pratt said the findings highlight how data portability could help Canadians take greater control of their digital lives and benefit from more competitive markets. The report is intended to encourage policymakers to expand data portability beyond early developments in consumer-driven banking and promote reforms that increase consumer choice in the data-driven economy.
The Bureau said its analysis is based on behavioural economics research, a survey of more than 3,000 Canadians, and comparisons with approaches adopted in other jurisdictions. It also noted that Canada’s Budget 2025 included a commitment to provide a data-mobility right under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, which the Bureau described as an important step toward facilitating data sharing across the economy.
