Health Privacy: A Need for Dialogue

When you consider the vast pool of personal health information that exists in electronic health record databases as well as the growing number of registries (both public and private) a large number of unanswered questions exist as to just what people, as patients and stakeholders, should accept as the “rules” surrounding such data.

New ABA Book on Information Security & Privacy

I was pleasantly surprised to receive my copy of Information Security and Privacy: A Practical Guide for Global Executives, Lawyers and Technologists — I contributed the section on Canada. It is a new book from the Science and Technology Law Section of the American Bar Association. Thomas Shaw did a very good job piecing together a […]

Trusting Medical Researchers with PHI

The subject of medical research and personal information protection can quickly become a quagmire. Even raising the subject risks one being tagged as a Grinch-like character who surely must drown kittens and tell those young cancer-stricken children appearing in telethons that there’s no Santa Claus. The win-win scenario is de-identified information with good security around […]

PIPEDA Review II: Private Right of Action?

In Ottawa, there’s talk of an election. From a privacy perspective, this raises questions not only about the fate of Bill C-29 (PIPEDA amendments) but also the anticipated-later-this-year second review of PIPEDA. Even if there isn’t an election, no one knows for sure about the timing of the enactment of C-29 in relation to the […]

To Fine Or Not To Fine

It’s tough to be a hospital these days and I don’t envy the people trying to manage such places.  But one thing I do expect is some degree of attention to the confidentiality of patient information. One hospital provides a unique set of facts that raises the question of appropriate regulatory responses.