The most recent report on the state of privacy and access to information in the NWT is about to go under the microscope at the Legislative Assembly.
Last July, the NWT’s Information and Privacy Commissioner, Andrew Fox, released his annual report on the state of privacy and access to information, his first since assuming the role in November 2020. The report was tabled by the Legislative Assembly in November 2021.
There are two acts governing the public’s right to access information in the NWT: the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (ATIPPA), which governs access to records held by public bodies and other select organizations; and the Health Information Act (HIA), which governs access to and sharing of personal medical records.
Between March April 1, 2020 and March 31, 2021, there were 66 privacy-breach notifications registered under the HIA. During the same time period, there were 14 reviews conducted of unlawful disclosure or collection of medical information. Several of these reviews are summarized in the Privacy Commissioner’s report.
In one case, an employee of the Department of Health and Social Services sent a patient’s private health information to a relative without realizing that doing so was a violation of the HIA; In another, documents with confidential health information were found abandoned in a house that had formally been occupied by employees of the NTHSSA.
The report notes a “concerning number” of the 66 breaches to the HIA were related to employees using fax machines to send medical records.
“For some reason, we continue to use fax machines in our healthcare system,” Yellowknife North MLA Rylund Johnson said. “It just seems amazing to everyone involved.”
Johnson chairs the committee that will be reviewing the report on Feb. 10. He says much of the problem can be chalked up to the health authority “not prioritizing investment in electronic medical records.”
In July of last year, several amendments were made to the ATIPPA, which are previewed in the report. These include a clause mandating that residents be notified when their personal information is disclosed in a way that poses “a real risk of personal harm,” and a “public interest override” provision that would require public bodies to reveal otherwise confidential information in cases where doing so would reveal “a risk of significant harm to the environment or to health and safety of the public.”
In his report, Fox expresses optimism about changes coming to how privacy is handled in the territory.
“In reviewing privacy breach reports provided under the HIA, my office has observed real improvement of public bodies’ awareness of privacy issues and best practices for appropriate handling of personal information and personal health information,” he wrote.
Johnson says he shares this optimism.
“There’s a lot of hope here,” he said. “It’s gonna depend on the GNWT to implement it properly, but the framing is there.”
Residents can tune in to the proceedings Thursday, Feb. 10 at noon via the Legislative Assembly’s website or the LATV network.