Latest IPC Decisions

The complainant alleged that a staff member of the Ontario Provincial Police (the OPP) had inappropriately accessed and disclosed an OPP incident report that contained her personal information. The ministry responsible for the OPP admitted that the complainant’s personal information had been accessed in violation of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act).

In this report, I find that the complainant’s incident report was accessed by an OPP sergeant without authorization on at least two occasions. In the absence of sufficient evidence, I do not find that the incident report was subsequently disclosed to the complainant’s spouse, but I do conclude that the incident report number was disclosed by an unknown OPP employee contrary to the Act. I conclude that the ministry does not have reasonable measures in place to protect personal information in its database, as required by section 4(1) of Regulation 460. I recommend improvements to the privacy policies and procedures, privacy training, and auditing of accesses to personal information. I also recommend that the ministry disclose the disciplinary measures imposed on the sergeant as a result of the inappropriate accesses.

The complainant submitted a request to the hospital for access to video surveillance clips of herself during an involuntary hospitalization ordered under the Mental Health Act. The hospital denied the complainant access to the responsive records. The hospital claims that granting the complainant access to the records could reasonably be expected to result in a risk of serious harm to the treatment or recovery of the complainant or a risk of serious bodily harm to the complainant or another person under section 52(1)(e)(i) of PHIPA.

The adjudicator finds that the records are not “dedicated primarily to” the complainant’s personal health information (PHI). Accordingly, the complainant’s right of access under PHIPA is limited to her PHI that can reasonably be severed from the records. The adjudicator finds that the exemption under section 52(1)(e)(i) of PHIPA does not apply to the records and that the records are comprised wholly of the complainant’s PHI. Accordingly, the adjudicator orders the hospital to grant the complainant access to the records in full.

A public hospital (the hospital) contacted the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC) to report a privacy breach under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA or the Act). Specifically, a hospital employee inappropriately accessed highly sensitive personal health information (phi) of a family member. In light of the steps taken by the hospital to address the breach, no formal review of this matter will be conducted under Part VI of PHIPA.

The complainant submitted a correction request under the Personal Health Information Protection Act to a neurologist to correct two consultation reports the neurologist had prepared. The neurologist refused to make the requested corrections, relying on section 55(8) and/or 55(9) and the complainant filed a complaint with the IPC. The adjudicator finds that the complainant has failed to demonstrate that the information in the records is incomplete or inaccurate for the purposes for which the neurologist uses the information. As a result, the neurologist’s decision not to make the requested corrections is upheld.

The complainant sought access to video footage of events leading up to, and including his restraint and placement in a seclusion room by hospital staff.

In PHIPA Decision 123, the adjudicator ordered the hospital to grant the complainant access to the portions of the video footage containing his personal health information that she determined can reasonably be severed from the exempt portions.

The hospital sought a reconsideration of PHIPA Decision 123. In this reconsideration decision, the adjudicator finds that the claimed grounds for reconsideration in sections 27.01(d) of the Code of Procedure for Matters under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 and/or section 64(1) of the Personal Health Information Protection Act is established. Accordingly, the hospital’s reconsideration request is granted in part, and as a result the adjudicator varies the order provisions in PHIPA Decision 123.

A joint custodial parent complained about several aspects of the hospital’s decisions in response to his request for access to the health records of his two children, both of whom are under the age of eight. During the adjudication stage of the complaint, the other joint custodial parent for the children (the children’s mother) confirmed to the adjudicator that she does not consent to the father’s access request. As a result, it is not necessary to decide the various issues raised by the father about the hospital’s decisions. As one of two equally ranked substitute decision-makers for the children under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA), the father does not have an independent right under PHIPA to request access to the children’s health records over the objection of the children’s mother. The adjudicator dismisses the complaint on this basis.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario received a privacy complaint alleging that the Township of Tay (the township) contravened the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) when it published council meeting minutes with the complainants' personal information online and made a hard copy of those minutes available to the public. The IPC opened a privacy complaint to review the township’s disclosure of the information at issue. During the early stages of the complaint, the township removed the complainants’ names and address from the version of the meeting minutes available online.

This report finds that the some of the information contained in the meeting minutes is personal information. This report also finds that the township’s disclosure of the personal information in the meeting minutes was not in accordance with section 32 of the Act.

The complainant made three access requests to Public Health Ontario (PHO) for information relating to her and her two minor children in respect of laboratory testing for Lyme disease, including the names of staff members who accessed her and her children’s electronic health record. After clarifying the request, PHO issued a decision granting partial access to responsive records, withholding the staff names citing privacy concerns, but not claiming any exemptions under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA). During the mediation of the complaint, PHO claimed the application of the discretionary exemption in section 20 (threat to health and safety) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) through the flow-through provision in sections 52(1)(f)(i) and (ii)(A) of PHIPA. Also during mediation, the complainant raised the issue of search, believing that other records relating to her and her children exist.

During the review of the complaint, PHO further raised the application of sections 18(1)(c) and (d) (economic and other interests) of FIPPA, through the flow-through provision in sections 52(1)(f)(i) and (ii)(A) of PHIPA.

In this decision, the adjudicator finds that PHO is a health information custodian, and the records at issue qualify as the personal health information of the complainant and her children. She further finds that each record is dedicated primarily to the personal health information of the patient that the audit report relates to.

She goes on to find that the information at issue is not exempt from the right of access in section 52(1) under sections 18(1)(c), 18(1)(d) or 20 of FIPPA through the flow-through provision in sections 52(1)(f)(i) and (ii)(A) of PHIPA. Lastly, she upholds PHO’s search for records responsive to the request.

This investigation file was opened after the Ministry of the Solicitor General (the ministry) contacted the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (the IPC) to report a privacy breach under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The breach related to the ministry’s look-up tool web portal for COVID-19 status information (the Portal). Specifically, the ministry advised that an audit of the Portal had determined that a number of police services had conducted broad ranging community searches rather than performing a more specific search of individuals tested for COVID-19.

This report concludes that the ministry did not have adequate measures in place to protect the personal information contained in the Portal. It also finds that the ministry did not respond adequately to the breaches.

Open Doors for Lanark Children and Youth (Open Doors) received a request under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA or the Act) for access to the entirety of the requester’s file from family therapy sessions that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Open Doors conducted two searches for records, and provided the requester with partial records. In particular, Open Doors granted the requester access to her own personal health information in the records, and disclosed to the requester her mother’s personal health information pursuant to the discretionary disclosure provision in section 38(4)(c) of the Act. The requester filed a complaint with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (the IPC) in order to seek the remaining portions of the records. As part of her complaint, the requester maintained that Open Doors had not conducted a reasonable search for records responsive to her request.
In this decision, the adjudicator finds that Open Doors has conducted a reasonable search for records, as required by sections 53 and 54 of the Act. She finds that the records contain the personal health information of the requester, as well as her mother, father, and brother, but that none of the records at issue are “dedicated primarily” to the requester’s own personal health information for the purposes of section 52(3). As a result, the requester’s right of access under the Act is limited to her personal health information that is reasonably severable from the records. Upon review of the records, the adjudicator determines that Open Doors has provided the requester with access to her own reasonably severable personal health information. The adjudicator also finds that Open Doors has disclosed as much of the mother’s personal health information as can be reasonably severed from the personal health information of the requester’s father and brother. Finally, the adjudicator orders Open Doors to consider the consent obtained from the requester’s brother during her review of the complaint, and to exercise its discretion and consider whether to disclose the brother’s personal health information to the requester under section 29(a) of the Act.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario received a privacy complaint involving the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO). The complaint was that the HRTO had inappropriately disclosed personal information in a Case Assessment Direction (CAD). The complainant believed that the disclosure had breached his privacy under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act).
This report finds that a CAD is an HRTO decision and that, in accordance with section 37 of the Act, the provisions for the protection of individual privacy found in Part III of the Act do not apply to it.

Under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (the Act), Bellwood Health Services Inc. (Bellwood) received a request from a former client for access to records relating to his treatment. Bellwood provided the requester, now the complainant, a complete copy of what it describes as his “official health record.” In addition to the official health record, the complainant sought access to his counsellor’s handwritten notes. Bellwood provided the complainant with a copy of the counsellor’s notebook, in which other clients’ personal health information had been withheld. Bellwood advised that the counsellor’s handwritten “loose working notes” had been shredded and therefore it was unable to provide the complainant with access to those notes. The complainant sought verification that Bellwood had provided him with access to all of his personal health information from the counsellor’s notebook. He also took issue with Bellwood’s destruction of the counsellor’s loose notes, which occurred after he submitted his request for access to them.

In this decision, the adjudicator finds that the counsellor’s notebook is a record of the complainant’s personal health information, but that it is not dedicated primarily to the complainant’s personal health information. His right of access is therefore limited to his personal health information in the record that can reasonably be severed from the remainder of the record. Upon review of the record, the adjudicator finds that there are small portions of the complainant’s personal health information to which he has not yet been provided access. She orders Bellwood to provide the complainant with access to those portions of the record.

The adjudicator also accepts Bellwood’s position that the counsellor’s loose notes would have contained the complainant’s personal health information; however, given that those records have been destroyed such that access is now impossible, she finds that no useful purpose would be served by determining the extent of the complainant’s right of access to those loose notes.

Finally, the adjudicator considers Bellwood’s handling and retention of the counsellor’s loose notes, and determines that it has acted in accordance with its obligations under section 13 of the Act.

The complainant made a number of requests to the custodian for records relating to her two children, who received services from the custodian. She later requested information about herself as well as about her children. The custodian issued several decisions, after which it maintained it had located and granted full access to all records responsive to the complainant’s requests. The complainant challenged the reasonableness of the custodian’s searches, including by identifying other records that she believed ought to exist. The adjudicator finds that the custodian conducted a reasonable search in accordance with its obligations under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004. She dismisses the complaint.

In this decision, the adjudicator determines that Quinte Health Care (the hospital) breached the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 in permitting staff fulfilling a designated role to access personal health information not reasonably necessary to the role. The inadequacies of the hospital’s processes and policies in defining the access to patient information appropriate to this role resulted in unauthorized accesses to the complainant’s personal health information. This decision also finds that an investigation of allegations of breaches of the complainant’s privacy was conducted in a manner contrary to the hospital’s privacy policies, resulting in other unauthorized accesses. The adjudicator concludes, taking into account a second investigation, that the hospital’s response to the privacy breach was adequate. The hospital has taken steps to remedy the deficiencies in its processes and policies and no orders are necessary.

The hospital reported three privacy breaches to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC). Despite efforts at the intake and investigation stages of the IPC’s process to obtain complete and clear information about the breaches, the IPC was not satisfied with the response of the hospital and commenced a review into the circumstances. After a review, the adjudicator concluded that the hospital failed in its duty to notify the affected patients of unauthorized uses of their personal health information, as required by the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004. Given the passage of time and the relatively benign circumstances of the privacy breaches, no useful purpose would be served by ordering notification at this time.