Latest IPC Decisions

This reconsideration decision addresses the complainant’s request for reconsideration of PHIPA Decision 206. In that decision, the adjudicator upheld a physician’s refusal to make corrections to the complainant’s medical record based on section 55(9)(b) (professional opinion or observations made in good faith). In this reconsideration decision, the adjudicator finds that the reconsideration request failed to establish any ground for reconsideration of PHIPA Decision 206 under section 27.01 of the Code of Procedure for Matters under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004. The reconsideration request is denied.

The complainant made an access request to a health information custodian under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (the Act) for his entire patient file. After reviewing the records provided by the custodian, he made a complaint to the IPC on the basis that further responsive records exist, raising the issue of reasonable search. In this decision, the adjudicator finds that the complainant has established that further records may exist and that the custodian did not provide sufficient evidence that the search for records was reasonable. She orders the custodian to conduct a further search for responsive records and to provide a written explanation to the complainant regarding the results of the search.

This complaint concerns allegations that the respondent Sinai Health System (the hospital) and an affected person (a doctor who had privileges at the hospital at the relevant times) used and disclosed the complainant’s personal health information in violation of her withdrawal of consent following her allegations of sexual assault by the doctor, and her request that the doctor no longer be involved in her health care. The incidents at issue involve the hospital’s and doctor’s disclosures of the complainant’s personal health information to the doctor’s lawyer and to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, for purposes related to proceedings involving the doctor arising from allegations about his conduct. They also include the doctor’s uses and a disclosure of her personal health information for health care purposes.

In this decision, the adjudicator finds that the hospital’s and doctor’s disclosures to the doctor’s lawyer and to the College, made for the purposes of existing or reasonably contemplated proceedings involving the doctor, were authorized by PHIPA to be made without consent.

However, the adjudicator finds that other uses and one disclosure of the complainant’s personal health information, made for health care purposes, were made in violation of PHIPA. In the circumstances, the complainant’s report of sexual assault and her request that the doctor no longer be involved in her health care was an express withdrawal of her consent to the doctor’s use and disclosure of her personal health information for health care purposes. Her statements also amounted to an express instruction against these uses and disclosure of her personal health information for health care purposes without her consent. By failing to recognize and implement the complainant’s express withdrawal of consent to, and her express instruction against, these uses and disclosure, the hospital allowed the doctor to continue to use and disclose the complainant’s personal health information for health care purposes contrary to her wishes, and in violation of PHIPA.

During the course of the complaint, the hospital acknowledged and implemented the complainant’s withdrawal of consent with respect to her personal health information. To address the broader issues raised by the complaint, the adjudicator orders the hospital to amend its information practices to clarify an individual’s right to withhold or withdraw consent to the collection, use, and disclosure of her personal health information, and to make express instructions with respect to the uses and disclosures of that information for certain purposes without consent. These amendments should make clear that an individual will not always employ specific terminology in PHIPA to communicate a withholding or withdrawal of consent or an express instruction with respect to her personal health information.

This decision relates to a request made under PHIPA to Midland Gardens Care Community (the custodian) for access to video surveillance footage of an incident involving the complainant. The custodian refused access to the video, in its entirety.

In this decision, the adjudicator does not uphold the custodian’s decision and she orders it to disclose to the complainant the portions of the video that contain their personal health information that can reasonably be severed from the video. To reach this conclusion, the adjudicator determined that the personal health information of the complainant is not subject to either of the exemptions claimed by the custodian [sections 52(1)(b) (another act prohibits disclosure) and 52(1)(e)(i) (risk of serious harm)].

The appellant made a request to the Kingston Police Services Board (the police) for access to high-level information about homicides involving intimate partners cleared by the police between 2015 and 2020. The police created a list containing the requested information, but denied access to it on the basis of the mandatory personal privacy exemption in section 14(1) of the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The appellant raised the application of the public interest override in section 16. In this order, the adjudicator finds that disclosure of the record would not constitute an unjustified invasion of personal privacy because it is desirable for subjecting the police to public scrutiny, and that the record is therefore not exempt under section 14(1). The adjudicator also finds that, even if the record were exempt, the public interest override would require its disclosure, and orders the police to disclose the record to the appellant.

The appellant made a request to the Ministry of the Solicitor General (the ministry) for access to high-level information about homicides involving intimate partners cleared by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) between 2015 and 2020. The ministry denied access to a chart containing the requested information prepared by the OPP on the basis of the mandatory personal privacy exemption in section 21(1) of the Act. The appellant raised the application of the public interest override in section 23. In this order, the adjudicator finds that disclosure of the information at issue would not constitute an unjustified invasion of personal privacy because it is desirable for subjecting the OPP to public scrutiny, and that the record is therefore not exempt under section 21(1). The adjudicator also finds that, even if the information were exempt, the public interest override would require its disclosure, and orders the ministry to disclose it to the appellant.

The London Police Services Board (the police) received a request under the Act for access to information about the appellant. The police issued a decision denying access in full to the responsive record under section 38(a) read with section 8(1)(g) of the Act. The appellant appealed the police’s access decision to the IPC and also raised reasonable search as an issue. In this order, the adjudicator upholds the police’s access decision, finds that the police conducted a reasonable search, and dismisses the appeal.

A complainant requested that a public hospital make his requested changes to certain hospital records concerning him, and to circulate those changes (or, in the alternative, a statement of his disagreement with the contents of the original records) to a list of individuals or groups within the hospital. The hospital refused his requests, including on the basis he had not established the duty to correct in section 55(8) of the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA), and that the information at issue falls within the exception to the duty to correct for professional opinions or observations made in good faith (section 55(9)(b) of PHIPA). The hospital also refused to circulate his statement of disagreement to named hospital agents on the basis there is no duty in PHIPA to do so. In addition to his complaint to the IPC about the hospital’s decisions, the complainant challenged the constitutionality of the hospital’s actions in a Notice of Constitutional Question served on the IPC and on the Attorneys-General of Ontario and Canada.

In this decision, the adjudicator determines there are no reasonable grounds to review the complaint under PHIPA. She accordingly exercises her discretion under sections 57(3) and (4) not to conduct a review, and dismisses the complaint.

A public hospital notified the office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (the IPC) of a breach under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (the Act), as there had been a cyberattack against the hospital. After the hospital self-reported the breach, the IPC opened a file relating to this breach, and subsequently received four complaints from affected individuals. During the cyberattack, the threat actor accessed numerous hospital systems, via a password-spraying attack that compromised an account with privileged access. The hospital took immediate steps to disable the affected accounts and fix the firewall issue that had allowed for the access to occur. The hospital found that the threat actor had exfiltrated large amounts of information, but was not able to determine the exact data that had been taken. The hospital did determine the types of personal health information that may have been accessed, and estimated the number of patients who may have been affected. The hospital provided public notice of the breach, and has agreed to continue to monitor the dark web for two years for any activity relating to this breach.

The hospital provided the IPC with numerous guidelines in place addressing information security, all of which were revised following the cyberattack. These included guidance on strength of passwords, limitation on privileges granted to accounts, and firewall protections. The hospital also provided the IPC with a breach protocol specific to cybersecurity incidents, which was put in place following the incident. In light of the steps taken by the hospital to remediate the situation, including the guidance now in place, I have concluded that it is not necessary to pursue a review of this matter under Part VI of the Act.

The complainant sought a review of a hospital’s decision to refuse her request, under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, to correct her records of personal health information that referred to her suffering from mental illness. The hospital refused the correction request under the section 55(9)(b) (professional opinions or observations made in good faith) exception to the duty to correct in section 55(8) of the Act.
In this decision, the adjudicator exercises her discretion, under sections 57(3) and 57(4)(a) of the Act, not to conduct a review of the complaint because there are no reasonable grounds to do so and the hospital has responded adequately to the complaint.

The complainant through her legal representative submitted an access request to Weechi-it-te-win Family Services (the service provider). This order determines that the service provider is deemed to have refused the complainant’s request for access. The service provider is ordered to provide a response to the complainant regarding their request for access to records of personal information in accordance with the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017 and without a recourse to a time extension.

This complaint deals with an access decision made by the Kristus Darzs Latvian Home (the custodian) in response to a request made by an Estate Trustee for all records relating to her deceased father who had been a resident at the custodian’s facility. The custodian granted access to all records, with the exception of a number of emails for which it claimed the application of the exemption in section 52(1)(e)(iii) of the Personal Health Information Protection Act (the Act). In this decision, the adjudicator finds that the emails are “dedicated primarily” to the deceased’s personal health information within the meaning of section 52(3) of the Act. She also finds that these emails are exempt from disclosure under section 52(1)(e)(iii) of the Act Consequently, under section 61(1) of the Act, the adjudicator makes no order. The complaint is dismissed.

In this decision, the adjudicator orders Weechi-it-te win Family Services to produce the records at issue in the complaint to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario.

In this decision the adjudicator finds that the complainant has established that the clinic has a duty to correct his records of personal health information and orders the clinic to do so by striking out the incorrect statements that the clinic had “saved images for future reference.” The complainant established under section 55(8) that the records are inaccurate for the purposes for which the clinic uses the information because the images were not saved, thereby undermining the very purpose for which the clinic included the statements in the records – to document the availability of the images for future reference.

The complainant requested, under section 55(1) of the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA), that her former family physician (the physician) make corrections to a record of her personal health information, a progress note. The physician denied the correction request stating that the conditions necessary to require a correction in PHIPA had not been met. He also relied on the exception to that duty which permits him to refuse to correct professional opinions or observations made in good faith. In this decision, the adjudicator upholds the physician’s refusal to correct the progress note, finding that the exception to the duty to correct, at section 55(9) of PHIPA, applies to the personal health information at issue. She dismisses the complaint.