CYFSA DECISION 5

The complainant’s information was contained in records of a children’s aid society (the CAS) relating to reports that a child suffered harm while in his care as a babysitter. The complainant sought access to all of his personal information in the CAS’s files. The CAS provided the complainant with a severed copy of records containing his personal information. The complainant then filed a complaint with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC), asking the IPC to review the CAS’s decision to withhold information in the records from him.
Exercising her discretion under sections 317(3) and 317(4) of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 (the Act), the adjudicator determines that there are no reasonable grounds to conduct a review of the subject-matter of the complaint and that a review is not warranted. She bases her determination on her finding that the complainant has no right of access to the records under section 312(1) of the Act because the records do not relate to “the provision of a service” to him as required for the application of that section. As a result, the adjudicator declines to conduct a review and she dismisses the complaint.