Privacy & Security

NIAGARA FALLS, Ont. – Niagara Health (NH) has announced the launch of a multi-year program for the Niagara Health Navigator, a mobile application designed to protect patient privacy and security while connecting patients to their health data, care providers and innovators. Read More

REGINA – Saskatchewan’s privacy commissioner has found eight people inappropriately gained access to the electronic health records of 10 Humboldt Broncos team members involved in a bus crash last April. Read More

TORONTO – The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario is launching an investigation after the Toronto Star newspaper published a story about the sale of anonymized medical records in the province. Read More

SUDBURY, Ont. – A computer virus at Health Sciences North led the hospital to shut down various medical systems to avoid the problem from spreading. Staff at the hospital in Sudbury called it a “zero-day virus,” meaning a virus that is was not recognized or captured by the anti-virus tools on the market. Read More

YELLOWKNIFE, NWT – The Northwest Territories’ privacy commissioner says she will investigate what she calls a “major breach,” after CBC reported that a man found hundreds of confidential medical records at a dump. Read More

HALIFAX – A proposed settlement worth approximately $400,000 has been reached in a Nova Scotia class-action lawsuit concerning the improper access of patient information by an employee of the former Capital District Health Authority, according to a law firm involved in the case. Read More

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia’s privacy commissioner has described the response by the province’s Health Minister to her report about a pharmacist snooping through the personal health information of 46 people as disappointing, saying that she feels the department is not taking the issue seriously. Read More

REGINA – Saskatchewan’s information and privacy commissioner, Ron Kruzeniski, is recommending that a doctor who altered the electronic record eight times after a patient’s death do a better job at keeping medical records. Read More

OTTAWA - The Ottawa Hospital discovered that the records of 30 patients were improperly accessed in 2018. The breach was discovered during a routine privacy check earlier this year. Among those patients are members of the family of late Ottawa philanthropist and businessman Peter Foustanellas, for whom an endocrine and diabetes centre at the hospital and an auditorium at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute are named. Read More

HALIFAX – Nova Scotia’s privacy commissioner says she’s shocked by how a grocery-store pharmacist was able to snoop into the electronic personal health information of dozens of people she knew. Privacy commissioner Catherine Tully warns the breach is indicative of a wider national problem – and demonstrates the “real and present danger” of intrusion into patients’ private lives. “This is a pharmacist, a professional with ethical obligations,” Tully told the Canadian Press. Read More