Find Your Immunization

Open source platform for aggregating and displaying vaccine availabilities in an accessible way.

Website: https://appointments.vaccinehunters.ca/

Type of Digital Public Good

  • Open content
  • Open data
  • ✅  Open software
  • Open standard
  • Open AI model

1. Is it relevant to one of the Sustainable Development Goals?

  • 3. Good Health and Well-being

    Evidence: Find Your Immunization is currently being used to simplify and facilitate the process of finding a COVID-19 vaccine in Canada. It is deployed across the country which has a population of almost 40 million, and is available in over 300 cities. There have been 2.7 million unique searches since it launched on June 18th, 2021. We have an official partnership with the City of Toronto, and Canadian pharmacies, hospitals and independent retailers who share their data daily regarding COVID-19 vaccine availability which is automatically updated in FYI.

    Link to Evidence: https://www.vaccinehunters.ca/assets/fyi/FindYourImmunization.pdf

2. Does it use an appropriate open license?

Yes, this project is licensed under the following license(s):

3. Is ownership clearly defined?

Is the ownership of the project and everything that the project produces clearly defined and documented?

Yes

If yes - please link to the relevant copyright, trademarks, or ownership documentation for the project.

https://appointments.vaccinehunters.ca/tos

4. Does the license of libraries/dependencies undermine the openess of the project?

Does this open project have mandatory dependencies (i.e. libraries, hardware) that create more restrictions than the original license?

No

If yes - are the open source components able to demonstrate independence from the closed component(s) and/or are there functional, open alternatives?

Not Applicable

If yes - please describe how the open source components are independent and/or list the open alternatives for the closed component:

Not Applicable

5. Is there documentation?

Does some documentation exist of the source code, use cases, and/or functional requirements. For software projects, this should be present as technical documentation that would allow a technical person unfamiliar with the project to launch and run the software. For datasets and data projects, this should be present as documentation that describes all the fields in the set, and provides context on how the data was collected and how it should be interpreted. For content collections, this should indicate any relevant compatible apps, software, hardware required to access the content and any instructions about how to use it.

Yes

If yes - please link to the relevant documentation:

6. Is non PII data and/or content accessible?

Does this project collect or use non-personally identifiable information (non-PII) data and/or content?

Yes

If yes - is there a mechanism for extracting or importing non-personally identifiable information (non-PII) from the system in a non-proprietary format?

No

If yes - describe the mechanism for extracting or importing non-personally identifiable information from the system in a non-proprietary format:

Supports RESTful APIs and uses Swagger for API documentation

7. Does the project adhere to privacy and other applicable international and domestic laws?

Has this project taken steps to ensure adherence with relevant privacy, domestic, and international laws? For example, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union or the Supplementary Act A/SA.1/01/10 on Personal Data Protection for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) (yes/no)

Yes

If yes, please list some of relevant laws that the project complies with:

  • Applicable laws - these Terms and any dispute, controversy, proceedings or claim of whatever nature arising out of or in any way relating to these Terms will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable within Ontario without regard to conflict of law provisions. The Ontario Superior Court of Justice will have exclusive jurisdiction to resolve any disputes relating to these Terms.

If yes, please describe the steps this project has taken to ensure adherence (include links to terms of service, privacy policy, or other relevant documentation):

8. Does the project adhere to standards and best practices?

Does this project support standards? (i.e. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 or other standards such as those listed on W3C)

Yes

Which standards does this project support (please list)

  • WCAG 2.0
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • OpenAPI

Can you point to evidence of your support? (i.e. please link to your validator, open test suite, etc.)

Was this project built and developed according to or in adherence with any design, technical and/or sector best practices or principles? i.e. the Principles for Digital Development?

Yes

Which principles and best practices does this project support (please list)

  • The UI is designed to comply with WCAG 2.0 standard. Some developers who worked on the project had accessibility training and did their best to ensure compliance, but the website has not been audited. The project was designed to support not just the “find a vaccine” ecosystem, but a “find me anything” ecosystem. Anything that can be displayed for a “find me/where is” program, the front and backend can be easily tweaked to support this. The modular design of components on the website means that the majority of the components can be reused for different needs, and require minimal changes to support different use-cases. The UHN social medicine unit plans to transition into the code owners, allowing for maintainability and scalability. Third party caching and an OpenAPI are other factors contributing to low running costs. A clearly defined schema allows for simple and clearly-defined data ingestion, allowing the website to serve consistent data despite having many data inputs. As privacy was one of our top concerns, the only data being stored is publicly available pharmacy data, and site views (provided by the server analytics).

9. Does the project do no harm by design?

Has this project taken steps to anticipate, prevent and do no harm by design?

On the whole, does this project take steps to ensure that it anticipates, prevents and does no harm by design?

Yes

Is there any additional information you would like to share about the mechanisms, processes or policies that this project uses to avoid doing harm by design?

The Services may be accessed and used only by or under the supervision of individuals who can form legally binding contracts under applicable laws, who are 18 years of age or older, and who are not barred from using the website under applicable laws.
Subject to these Terms, the Services can be used to access information on vaccines and potentially available vaccination appointments. With VHC’s express written consent, the Services may also be used to serve as a model for non-profit organizations whose goal is to provide the public with information regarding vaccines.
The Services are provided by VHC in good faith on an “as is” and “as available” basis for general information purposes. Users agree to bear all risks associated with their use of the Services, including any reliance on their availability, accuracy, completeness, timeliness, usefulness or appropriateness.
The use of extensions to the Services is permitted provided that i) you contact us and we provide our express written consent to the use of the extension; and ii) you abide by any conditions we impose on that consent.

9.a. Data Privacy & Security

Does this project collect or store personally identifiable information (PII) data and/or content?

No

If yes - please list the types of data and/or content collected and/or stored by the project:

Not Applicable

If yes - does this project share this data and/or content with third parties?

No

Please describe the circumstances with which this project shares data and/or content with third parties. Please add links as relevant.

Not Applicable

If yes - does the project ensure the privacy, security and integrity of this data and/or content collection and has it taken steps to prevent adverse impacts resulting from its collection, storage and distribution.

Yes

If yes - please describe the steps, and include a link to the privacy policy and/or terms of service:

Vaccine Hunters Canada (VHC) takes reasonable steps to ensure the security of its systems. However, there are inherent risks associated with the use of electronic means of communication. Therefore, VHC discourages the use of its website to submit sensitive personal or business information. The possibility exists that information could be unlawfully observed by a third party while the data is being transmitted over the internet or while stored on cloud-based servers, or subject to access and review by law enforcement or other authorities. VHC accepts no liability that may arise if any other persons obtain the information you submit to the Services.

9.b. Inappropriate & Illegal Content

Does this project collect, store or distribute content?

No

If yes - what kinds of content does this project, collect, store or distribute? (i.e. childrens books)

Not Applicable

If yes - does this project have policies that describe what is considered innappropriate content? (i.e. child sexual abuse materials)

Not Applicable

If yes - please link to the relevant policy/guidelines/documentation.

Not Applicable

If yes - does this project have policies and processes for detecting and moderating innappropriate/illegal content?

Not Applicable

If yes - please describe the policies and processes for detecting, reporting and removing innapropriate/illegal content (Please include the average response time for assessment and/or action. Link to any policies or descriptions of how inappropriate content is handled):

Not Applicable

9.c. Protection from harassment

Does this project facilitate interactions with or between users or contributors?

No

If yes - does the project take steps to address the safety and security of underage users?

Not Applicable

If yes - please describe the steps this project takes to address risk or prevent access by underage users:

Not Applicable

If yes - does the project help users and contributors protect themselves against grief, abuse, and harassment?

Not Applicable

If yes - please describe the steps taken to help users protect themselves.

Not Applicable

Development & deployment countries

List of countries this project was developed in.

  • Canada

List of countries this project is actively deployed in.

  • Canada