Decisions

A joint custodial parent complained about several aspects of the hospital’s decisions in response to his request for access to the health records of his two children, both of whom are under the age of eight. During the adjudication stage of the complaint, the other joint custodial parent for the children (the children’s mother) confirmed to the adjudicator that she does not consent to the father’s access request. As a result, it is not necessary to decide the various issues raised by the father about the hospital’s decisions. As one of two equally ranked substitute decision-makers for the children under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (PHIPA), the father does not have an independent right under PHIPA to request access to the children’s health records over the objection of the children’s mother. The adjudicator dismisses the complaint on this basis.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario received a privacy complaint alleging that the Township of Tay (the township) contravened the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act) when it published council meeting minutes with the complainants' personal information online and made a hard copy of those minutes available to the public. The IPC opened a privacy complaint to review the township’s disclosure of the information at issue. During the early stages of the complaint, the township removed the complainants’ names and address from the version of the meeting minutes available online.

This report finds that the some of the information contained in the meeting minutes is personal information. This report also finds that the township’s disclosure of the personal information in the meeting minutes was not in accordance with section 32 of the Act.

The complainant made three access requests to Public Health Ontario (PHO) for information relating to her and her two minor children in respect of laboratory testing for Lyme disease, including the names of staff members who accessed her and her children’s electronic health record. After clarifying the request, PHO issued a decision granting partial access to responsive records, withholding the staff names citing privacy concerns, but not claiming any exemptions under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA). During the mediation of the complaint, PHO claimed the application of the discretionary exemption in section 20 (threat to health and safety) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) through the flow-through provision in sections 52(1)(f)(i) and (ii)(A) of PHIPA. Also during mediation, the complainant raised the issue of search, believing that other records relating to her and her children exist.

During the review of the complaint, PHO further raised the application of sections 18(1)(c) and (d) (economic and other interests) of FIPPA, through the flow-through provision in sections 52(1)(f)(i) and (ii)(A) of PHIPA.

In this decision, the adjudicator finds that PHO is a health information custodian, and the records at issue qualify as the personal health information of the complainant and her children. She further finds that each record is dedicated primarily to the personal health information of the patient that the audit report relates to.

She goes on to find that the information at issue is not exempt from the right of access in section 52(1) under sections 18(1)(c), 18(1)(d) or 20 of FIPPA through the flow-through provision in sections 52(1)(f)(i) and (ii)(A) of PHIPA. Lastly, she upholds PHO’s search for records responsive to the request.

This investigation file was opened after the Ministry of the Solicitor General (the ministry) contacted the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (the IPC) to report a privacy breach under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The breach related to the ministry’s look-up tool web portal for COVID-19 status information (the Portal). Specifically, the ministry advised that an audit of the Portal had determined that a number of police services had conducted broad ranging community searches rather than performing a more specific search of individuals tested for COVID-19.

This report concludes that the ministry did not have adequate measures in place to protect the personal information contained in the Portal. It also finds that the ministry did not respond adequately to the breaches.

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.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario received a privacy complaint involving the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO). The complaint was that the HRTO had inappropriately disclosed personal information in a Case Assessment Direction (CAD). The complainant believed that the disclosure had breached his privacy under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act).
This report finds that a CAD is an HRTO decision and that, in accordance with section 37 of the Act, the provisions for the protection of individual privacy found in Part III of the Act do not apply to it.

Under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (the Act), Bellwood Health Services Inc. (Bellwood) received a request from a former client for access to records relating to his treatment. Bellwood provided the requester, now the complainant, a complete copy of what it describes as his “official health record.” In addition to the official health record, the complainant sought access to his counsellor’s handwritten notes. Bellwood provided the complainant with a copy of the counsellor’s notebook, in which other clients’ personal health information had been withheld. Bellwood advised that the counsellor’s handwritten “loose working notes” had been shredded and therefore it was unable to provide the complainant with access to those notes. The complainant sought verification that Bellwood had provided him with access to all of his personal health information from the counsellor’s notebook. He also took issue with Bellwood’s destruction of the counsellor’s loose notes, which occurred after he submitted his request for access to them.

In this decision, the adjudicator finds that the counsellor’s notebook is a record of the complainant’s personal health information, but that it is not dedicated primarily to the complainant’s personal health information. His right of access is therefore limited to his personal health information in the record that can reasonably be severed from the remainder of the record. Upon review of the record, the adjudicator finds that there are small portions of the complainant’s personal health information to which he has not yet been provided access. She orders Bellwood to provide the complainant with access to those portions of the record.

The adjudicator also accepts Bellwood’s position that the counsellor’s loose notes would have contained the complainant’s personal health information; however, given that those records have been destroyed such that access is now impossible, she finds that no useful purpose would be served by determining the extent of the complainant’s right of access to those loose notes.

Finally, the adjudicator considers Bellwood’s handling and retention of the counsellor’s loose notes, and determines that it has acted in accordance with its obligations under section 13 of the Act.

The complainant made a number of requests to the custodian for records relating to her two children, who received services from the custodian. She later requested information about herself as well as about her children. The custodian issued several decisions, after which it maintained it had located and granted full access to all records responsive to the complainant’s requests. The complainant challenged the reasonableness of the custodian’s searches, including by identifying other records that she believed ought to exist. The adjudicator finds that the custodian conducted a reasonable search in accordance with its obligations under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004. She dismisses the complaint.

In this decision, the adjudicator determines that Quinte Health Care (the hospital) breached the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 in permitting staff fulfilling a designated role to access personal health information not reasonably necessary to the role. The inadequacies of the hospital’s processes and policies in defining the access to patient information appropriate to this role resulted in unauthorized accesses to the complainant’s personal health information. This decision also finds that an investigation of allegations of breaches of the complainant’s privacy was conducted in a manner contrary to the hospital’s privacy policies, resulting in other unauthorized accesses. The adjudicator concludes, taking into account a second investigation, that the hospital’s response to the privacy breach was adequate. The hospital has taken steps to remedy the deficiencies in its processes and policies and no orders are necessary.

The hospital reported three privacy breaches to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC). Despite efforts at the intake and investigation stages of the IPC’s process to obtain complete and clear information about the breaches, the IPC was not satisfied with the response of the hospital and commenced a review into the circumstances. After a review, the adjudicator concluded that the hospital failed in its duty to notify the affected patients of unauthorized uses of their personal health information, as required by the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004. Given the passage of time and the relatively benign circumstances of the privacy breaches, no useful purpose would be served by ordering notification at this time.

The complainant, an employee of the hospital, complained about the hospital’s handling of information in her file in the hospital’s Occupational Health Services (OHS) department. The complainant’s OHS file contains identifying information about her, including medical documentation that she provided to address issues such as her capacity to work, entitlement to sick pay, and workplace accommodation needs. In this decision, the adjudicator finds that the complainant’s OHS file is maintained primarily for employment purposes, not for health care purposes, and is not a record of personal health information within the meaning of the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 [section 4(4)]. As a result, PHIPA does not apply to the hospital’s handling of information in the OHS file. She dismisses the complaint.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (the IPC) received a privacy complaint from the parent of a student of the Toronto District School Board (the board), objecting to the board’s use of Google’s G Suite for Education services. The complainant alleged that the board’s utilization of G Suite for Education contravened the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA or the Act). The complainant’s concerns included a failure to notify, and obtain the consent of, parents and children for the collection, use, and disclosure of students’ personal information; the use of personal information beyond the scope of what is permitted under the Act; the storage of personal information outside of Canada; inadequate security protections for the students’ personal information; and a lack of adequate deletion and retention practices for the personal information.

This report concludes that the board’s collection, uses, and disclosures of the students’ personal information were in compliance with the Act, but that the board’s notice of collection was deficient.

This report also concludes that the board has reasonable contractual and oversight measures in place to ensure the privacy and security of the personal information of its students. This report makes recommendations to strengthen the board’s oversight of those security measures.

The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario received a complaint under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (the Act) about a public hospital (the hospital)’s redaction of its employees’ names from an audit of a patient’s health records. This led to an investigation by this office into the hospital’s practices with respect to responding to access requests for these audits.

This decision concludes that the hospital’s practices were not in accordance with section 54(1) of the Act. However, in light of the steps taken by the hospital to amend these practices, this decision finds that a review of this matter is not warranted.

The office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario received a complaint under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004 (the Act) against a medical clinic (the Clinic). The complaint involved a second incident in which a physician working at the Clinic left a patient alone in a waiting room that had a computer screen displaying the physician’s schedule, which contained personal health information of 35 patients.

This decision finds that the Clinic failed to take reasonable steps to ensure the protection of the personal health information against unauthorized disclosure as required by section 12(1) of the Act. I also find that the Clinic did not notify the affected patients as is required by section 12(2) of the Act. However, in light of the steps taken by the Clinic to address the privacy breach, which included notifying the affected patients, I am satisfied with the Clinic’s response to the breach and it is unnecessary for this matter to proceed to adjudication to consider potential orders.

This decision deals with the issues of access to records of personal health information, and reasonable search. The access request, made to Hamilton Health Sciences, was for psychological testing data relating to the complainant. In this decision, the adjudicator finds that the records at issue are excluded from Part V of the Personal Health Information Protection Act by virtue of section 51(1)(c). The adjudicator also finds that the hospital’s search for records responsive to the request was reasonable.