Commissioner’s Blog

When I started my five-year mandate as commissioner, I committed to working on access and privacy issues that matter most to Ontarians and on which the IPC can have most positive and significant impact. As part of this commitment, we embarked on a strategic planning exercise to identify the prior...

Hard to believe a full year has passed since we closed our office doors and began working from home. The significant adjustments made by my team, the high pace of change they have to contend with, and their unwavering commitment to continue serving the people of Ontario, regardless of the circums...

We’re back with another episode of Info Matters, en Français! Our most recent episode, recorded in French, is a celebration of the Francophone language and culture in the lead up to International Francophonie Day on March 20. Ontario has the largest French-speaking minority community in Canada...

In case you haven’t heard, the IPC has launched a new podcast! It’s called Info Matters, and it’s about people, privacy, and access to information. Through this new communication channel, I’ll be talking with people from all walks of life, hearing interesting stories, providing concrete f...

Today, I had the pleasure of presenting at the annual PHIPA Connections Summit. This year, the summit presenters explored emerging issues related to personal health information management in a pandemic. In my presentation, I shared some health sector statistics from 2020, touched on the recent ch...

This past Thursday marked my first Privacy Day as Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner. Seven months ago, as a newly minted Commissioner, I hit the ground running, working from home in the middle of a pandemic, faced with a number of complex privacy issues that required my prompt atte...

This certainly wasn’t the year we expected it to be. In 2020, COVID-19 profoundly changed how we work and how we live our day-to-day lives. With science rapidly evolving, infection rates fluctuating, and advisories constantly changing, the pandemic has thrown us many curveballs this past year. ...

The shift towards increased digitization since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic is having a profound impact on how Ontarians interact with their governments. It is also changing how public institutions deliver services, either alone or with third-party service providers. This rapid uptake of di...

Even before joining the IPC, I always admired Ontario’s Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA) for its “gutsiness.”  PHIPA introduced many novel concepts for its time. These include the first breach notification requirement in the country; a comprehensive code for consent and s...

The digital revolution has brought with it a crushing wave of new access and privacy challenges. By trying to address them all with the limited resources available, we may end up just treading water without really getting anywhere. To achieve real positive change, we need to keep our eyes on the ...