The complainant submitted a request under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA or the Act) to the Ottawa Physiotherapy & Sport Clinic (the custodian) for access to his records of personal health information. The custodian issued a decision granting access to paper copies of the records upon payment of a fee of $150 for the processing of the request. The complainant filed a complaint with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (the IPC) regarding the custodian’s fee and its refusal to provide the records in electronic format.
In this decision, the adjudicator finds that, by virtue of section 52(1.1), the complainant’s right of access to his records of personal health information includes the right to access them in electronic format. She orders the custodian to provide the complainant with the records in electronic format.
The adjudicator also considers the amount of fee which would be in keeping with the principle of “reasonable cost recovery” under section 54(11) to provide the records in electronic format. She finds that, if the records are provided on a physical storage device such as CD or USB, reasonable cost recovery is $153.75. She finds that if the records are instead transmitted electronically (for example, via secure email or as a password protected PDF sent by regular email), reasonable cost recovery is $143.75.
Finally, the adjudicator finds that the fees for providing the records in electronic format are instead of and not in addition to the fee for paper copies that has been already paid by the complainant. She also finds that the difference between the $150 fee already paid by the complainant and the fees that she has found to be in keeping with reasonable cost recovery for providing the records in electronic format is sufficiently negligible that the custodian is not permitted to charge the complainant for the difference if it is providing the records on a physical storage device nor is it required to provide a refund if the records are to be transmitted electronically.