First Nations Information Governance Centre

The First Nations Information Governance Centre (FNIGC) is Canada's national non-profit organization for First Nations data sovereignty, headquartered in Akwesasne, Ontario. Incorporated on April 22, 2010, following AFN Chiefs-in-Assembly Resolution #48/2009, FNIGC carries a special mandate from the Assembly of First Nations to serve as the institutional home for First Nations–owned, –controlled, and –governed data. FNIGC is the steward of the First Nations Principles of OCAP® — the foundational framework defining how First Nations data is collected, protected, used, and shared — and operates national surveys that are the only First Nations health and social data instruments fully owned and controlled by First Nations themselves.

Founding

FNIGC's origins trace to 1996, when the Assembly of First Nations formed a National Steering Committee to design a national First Nations health survey after the federal government excluded First Nations people living on reserve from three major population surveys. The OCAP Principles were established in 1998 within that governance body — originally as "OCA" (Ownership, Control, Access), with members soon adding a "P" to recognize the importance of possession. The First Nations Information Governance Committee that had operated within the AFN was converted, via a stand-alone non-profit mandate that AFN Chiefs-in-Assembly ratified in December 2009, into FNIGC — incorporated April 22, 2010, with a mandate to hold data-sovereignty infrastructure at arm's length from government rather than inside an advocacy body.

Jonathan Dewar, PhD, returned as Chief Executive Officer in January 2024, having previously served as Executive Director then CEO from November 2017 to July 2022 before a period as Director General at the Canadian Museum of History.

OCAP® Principles

FNIGC's most widely recognized product is the First Nations Principles of OCAP®, a governance framework for data sovereignty that FNIGC holds as a registered trademark — granted by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office in August 2015 to protect the principles from misuse and improper interpretation by universities, research bodies, and government agencies. The four principles are:

• Ownership — communities possess collective rights to their cultural knowledge and information, analogous to individual property rights.
• Control — First Nations have authority to oversee all aspects of research and information management affecting them, including resource allocation and review procedures.
• Access — First Nations have the right to obtain information about themselves from any source and to determine who accesses their collective data.
• Possession — the physical custody and management of data; the practical mechanism through which ownership rights are enforced.

OCAP® is the Canadian national counterpart to the internationally adopted CARE Principles (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics), developed collaboratively through the Global Indigenous Data Alliance and published in 2020. Where CARE articulates principles for stewards of Indigenous data globally, OCAP® names the rights and controls that First Nations communities in Canada are entitled to assert over their own data. The trademark is protective infrastructure: the trademarked name converts data sovereignty from a principle into an enforceable claim against institutional misappropriation.

FNIGC provides training and certification on OCAP® through the Fundamentals of OCAP® online course, which was revised in 2023 to mark the 25th anniversary of the principles, featuring original artwork from First Nations artists and voice narration from First Nations actors. The course is offered at $500 per individual registration; a Sponsorship Program supports First Nations learners with complimentary access.

National Surveys

FNIGC operates four national survey programs — the only national First Nations data instruments designed, controlled, and owned by First Nations:

• First Nations Regional Health Survey (FNRHS / RHS) — piloted in 1997; the first and only national First Nations health survey, collecting wide-ranging information on health, wellbeing, and social determinants of health across reserve and northern communities
• First Nations Early Childhood, Education and Employment Survey (FNREEES)
• First Nations Community Survey (FNCS)
• First Nations Labour and Employment Development Survey (FNLED)

The surveys are conducted with ten First Nations regional partner organizations, run in alignment with OCAP® principles, and fill a structural gap: federal population surveys historically excluded First Nations people on reserve, producing a void in national data on health and socio-economic conditions for those communities.

First Nations Data Governance Strategy

In 2020, FNIGC delivered to the Government of Canada A First Nations Data Governance Strategy — Canada's first national strategy for achieving First Nations data sovereignty. Funded by Budget 2018 for a three-year development and completed in two, the strategy articulates a vision that every First Nation will achieve data sovereignty in alignment with its distinct world view. Its centerpiece proposal is a First Nations-led national network of Regional Information Governance Centres (RIGCs) — expert-based, fully functioning data and statistical service centers equipped to serve all First Nations communities. The strategy encompasses data repatriation: reclaiming First Nations data currently held by federal agencies and non-Indigenous institutions, including a mapping of where data is located, its quality, and the capacity required to leverage it.

AI and Data Sovereignty

FNIGC participated in the February 25–27 2026 GIDA IDSov and AI Workshop at COLPOS in Texcoco, Mexico — convened by the Global Indigenous Data Alliance alongside Te Mana Raraunga, the Pacific Data Sovereignty Network, the US Indigenous Data Sovereignty Network, and other member networks — addressing AI as the primary site where data sovereignty is currently being tested. At stake: AI systems trained on Indigenous languages, traditional knowledge, and oral histories collected without consent, concentrating benefit with corporations and governments rather than communities.

Within Canada, OCAP®'s integration into national AI policy frameworks remains limited despite the framework's widespread adoption in health and demographic research. As Canada advances AI legislation including the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act, FNIGC's position is that Indigenous data governance — OCAP® principles including prior consent, community control, and benefit-sharing — must be structurally embedded, not merely acknowledged in principle.

Corpus role

FNIGC is the Canada-specific anchor for the First Nations data-sovereignty organizing layer. It sits within the international movement as a national member network of the Global Indigenous Data Alliance while operating domestically as the rights-holding infrastructure through which First Nations communities assert sovereignty over their data vis-à-vis the Canadian state and research sector. Its OCAP® framework is the mechanism: a trademarked, enforced governance standard that converts data sovereignty from aspiration into operational claim — and the primary framing First Nations communities bring to the emerging AI governance contest in Canada.