In a new Decision 96 of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPC), a father who had access-only (not custody) of his children wanted a certain information from a health care provider. The health care provider refused to confirm or deny they had information about the children. The father complained to the IPC. The… Read more »

Law is generally a no nonsense business. We write legal opinions, emails, and draft court documents with the odd flourish of a bulleted list. We stick to the standard fonts: Times New Roman, Arial. We may splurge with Calibri. No Bauhaus for us. Forget Narkisim. The topic of “beauty” does not often arise in polite… Read more »

In January, the child welfare sector, including children’s aid societies, will become subject to new privacy rules. Part X of the Child, Youth and Family Services Act will come into force and will create a harmonized privacy environment for the sector for the first time. I was recently interviewed by Advocate Daily on this topic…. Read more »

Listening to the acoustic version of A-Ha’s “Take on me” I heard the line: “Say after me … it’s no better to be safe than sorry”. I’m a lawyer. I have probably said “it’s better to be safe than sorry” or “on the safe side” a million times. But when I heard that line in… Read more »

My biggest competitive advantage as a lawyer is … visiting my clients in person. I know. I know. This is going to be controversial. Some lawyers are going to rail against this idea because they never see their clients in person and that works beautifully for them. They have a digital practice and it is… Read more »

Hey Health Privacy Officers in Ontario – you need to know this! The Information and Privacy Commissioner just released new guidelines on its internal procedures for health privacy:  The Code of Procedure for Matters under the Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004.  It was updated August 2019. Why does this matter to you as a… Read more »

On July 1st a new law came into effect: the Missing Persons Act, 2018. Healthcare organizations and providers need to know about this new law because there may be new documentation from police you will need to review. The police now have more powers when investigating missing persons in Ontario. Missing Person A “missing person”… Read more »

Time flies when you are having fun! We have a lot to celebrate this year: The first big announcement is the addition of another lawyer to our team.  Megan Ferrier joined me in June. Megan is the kind of lawyer everyone wants on their team. She is brilliant and kind. Having another legal brain around… Read more »

Hey lawyer friends! It’s time to talk about time again. It’s Summer. That means we have elongated days of sunshine and warm nights where we actually leave the office and the house to socialize. Right now you may be open to hearing tips of how to expand your experience of time that you are absolutely… Read more »

Yup – you do! I have heard from a lot of healthcare teams recently that they have been struggling with vacation, sick days, leaves of absence and unexpected departures from the Privacy Office.  When you rely on one person in your organization to deal with all the privacy issues, you can feel vulnerable when that… Read more »