Commissioner’s Blog

I want to extend my congratulations to Patricia Kosseim on her appointment as the next Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. I know Patricia to be a committed professional who brings a wealth of experience as a regulator and privacy and access lawyer. I am confident she will carry out ...

As I write this, people are trying to come to terms with a ‘new normal’ and adapting to the restrictions and fears that this health crisis has brought to our everyday lives. I think about our friends in the health and child protection sectors who continue to provide essential and often life-s...

The indiscriminate scraping of the internet to collect images of people’s faces for law enforcement purposes has significant privacy implications for all Ontarians. We have made it clear in the past that my office should be consulted before this type of technology is used. We were not aware tha...

Today is Privacy Day. It also marks my last Privacy Day as the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. As my term comes to an end, my thoughts turn to the accomplishments of the last five years and the challenges that lay before us. My first task on being appointed commissioner was to se...

New year, new rules. In Ontario, children, youth and families now have a legally protected right to request access and corrections to their personal information held by children’s aid societies and other service providers. They can also file privacy complaints with our office. These changes too...

As the new year approaches, so does the time to submit your statistics to the IPC. First, let me say that I appreciate the important work that institutions and health information custodians do to keep track and report statistics relating to requests under Ontario’s freedom of information and he...

LifeLabs recently notified the public about a cyberattack involving unauthorized access to its computer systems. Here is what you need to know about this breach: Our office is working with the B.C. privacy commissioner to investigate the breach. We will be looking at what measures LifeLabs could...

Police leaders from across Canada have launched new best practices for responding to sexual violence. They include a made-in-Ontario approach to case review, one that draws on community expertise, while still protecting the privacy of complainants, witnesses and others. Last week, the Canadian As...

The public’s right to access government information is an integral part of a high functioning, democratic, and accountable society. In Ontario, it is incumbent on government institutions to comply with our access laws, and it’s my job to look for any barriers to access that might arise, wheth...

The conversation about the compelling public interest override is ongoing for those of us who administer provincial access laws. Supporting the public’s efforts to access government information is important. It’s also vital that institutions carefully examine the public interest override prov...