Commissioner’s Blog

While the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down almost every aspect of our society and has grounded to a near-halt many sectors of our economy, cybercriminals remained busier than ever and show no signs of abating. As Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) noted in their most recent annua...

September 27 to October 3 is a special time, celebrated across the country, to raise awareness about access rights and freedom of information. I’ll be joining my fellow commissioners in a series of activities throughout the week to put the spotlight on access to information and I hope you’ll ...

Children use the internet for so many different things these days. They play games, watch shows and videos, visit websites, listen to music, use apps, engage in social networks, chat with family and friends, and even do schoolwork online. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, kids’ use of th...

Last fall, when the COVID-19 pandemic steered students away from schools and into their homes, school boards and schools needed to pivot on a dime and be certain that the online tools and data management systems they adopted kept students’ personal information safe and secure. Following a long...

From the early months of the pandemic, it became increasingly apparent that using personal health information (PHI) for critical health care, research, and public health purposes, would play a crucial role in helping us understand and control the spread of the deadly coronavirus. The importance o...

With the rapid adoption of technology and digitization of health services, protecting patient privacy is more vital than ever to maintain Ontarians’ confidence in their health care system. This is why the IPC selected Trust in Digital Health as one of the key strategic priorities to guide our w...

So much has changed since the mid-2000s when the idea of police wearing body-worn cameras (BWCs) was first contemplated. At that time, there was widespread public outcry, fueled by fears that we were marching ever closer to the fictional surveillance state of George Orwell’s 1984. In recent yea...

Today I was honoured to table my first annual report in the Ontario Legislature. It contains an overview of the significant developments that shaped our efforts in 2020, along with notable activities and initiatives that marked an unprecedented year. If anything, the uncertainty of the past year...

What was once science fiction of the past is now the science reality of today. Once a fanciful idea, facial recognition technologies have arrived, and their use, particularly by law enforcement agencies, raises serious concerns about personal privacy, not to mention other fundamental human rights...

“There is nothing permanent except change.” – Heraclitus These famous words of the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, have never rung truer than they do today. As with everything else in life, the delivery of health care continues to change and evolve, especially over the last two decades,...