PHIPA DECISION 158

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.