Commissioner’s Blog | Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario

Information and Privacy Commissioner Patricia Kosseim posing for a photo on a bridge, with trees in the background.

Commissioner’s Blog

Dive into Commissioner Kosseim’s insightful blogs covering privacy, access, cyber safety, and beyond. Stay informed and explore the latest insights.

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Showing 28 - 36 of 242 results

Goodbye 2021: Reflections on the year that was

Throughout the past year, we continued to be tested in our ability to develop and persevere in the face of change and uncertainty, inflicted by a brutal and unrelenting pandemic. Our 2021 annual report, due out next spring, will lay out all the facts and figures of the year — numbers of cases...

Published on Dec 22, 2021

Digital health week: Celebrating health care on the digital frontier

The health care landscape shifted dramatically in March 2020 with the onset of the pandemic. A recent study estimates that outpatient virtual care visits in Ontario increased by nearly 70 per cent from pre-pandemic levels. While many of the tools used to provide virtual health care have been around...

Published on Dec 1, 2021

More and more we’re living online, and cybercriminals know it!

While the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down almost every aspect of our society and has grounded to a near-halt many sectors of our economy, cybercriminals remained busier than ever and show no signs of abating. As Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) noted in their most recent annual...

Published on Oct 8, 2021

Right to Know Week: Prioritizing transparency in a modern government

September 27 to October 3 is a special time, celebrated across the country, to raise awareness about access rights and freedom of information. I’ll be joining my fellow commissioners in a series of activities throughout the week to put the spotlight on access to information and I hope you’ll take...

Published on Sep 27, 2021

Privacy Pursuit! Teaching kids about privacy in a fun way

Children use the internet for so many different things these days. They play games, watch shows and videos, visit websites, listen to music, use apps, engage in social networks, chat with family and friends, and even do schoolwork online. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, kids’ use of the...

Published on Sep 23, 2021

Back to school: Lessons learned about online educational tools and platforms

Last fall, when the COVID-19 pandemic steered students away from schools and into their homes, school boards and schools needed to pivot on a dime and be certain that the online tools and data management systems they adopted kept students’ personal information safe and secure. Following a long...

Published on Sep 9, 2021

Using health data for the public good

From the early months of the pandemic, it became increasingly apparent that using personal health information (PHI) for critical health care, research, and public health purposes, would play a crucial role in helping us understand and control the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The importance of...

Published on Aug 4, 2021

Stamping out snooping once and for all

With the rapid adoption of technology and digitization of health services, protecting patient privacy is more vital than ever to maintain Ontarians’ confidence in their health care system. This is why the IPC selected Trust in Digital Health as one of the key strategic priorities to guide our work...

Published on Jul 14, 2021

From George Orwell to George Floyd: The shift in thinking about police use of body-worn cameras

So much has changed since the mid-2000s when the idea of police wearing body-worn cameras (BWCs) was first contemplated. At that time, there was widespread public outcry, fueled by fears that we were marching ever closer to the fictional surveillance state of George Orwell’s 1984. In recent years...

Published on Jul 7, 2021

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