On September 12, the Alberta Court of Queen’s bench issued a decision in which it held that the Alberta Health Information Act may apply to information about individuals other than those who receive a health service that is collected when a health service is provided to an individual.
The case involves an FOI request filed by the daughter of two residents of a health facility. The daughter sought records of her personal information in the custody of the facility after it imposed conditions on her visitation privileges. The facility denied access to a number of records on the basis that references in the records to the daughter constituted the health information of her parents. The Court agreed, and said the following:
These hypotheticals suggest that “other information about an individual that is collected when a health service is provided to the individual” includes, at the very least, information about the mental or physical health of others that relates to the physical and mental health of an individual or a health service provided to an individual and is collected when a health service is provided to an individual. It may affect the diagnosis or the health service provided to the patient.
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Using this standard to determine whether any of the information in the records of Covenant Health about Ms. McHarg is classified as health information under the Health Information Act, the adjudicator must ask two questions. First, is there any information in Covenant Health’s records about Ms. McHarg that relates to or may directly affect the physical and mental health of Ms. McHarg’s parents or a health service provided by Covenant Health to Ms. McHarg’s parents? Second, if so, was this information collected when Covenant Health provided a health service to her parents?
The Court also addressed two issues pertaining to the application of exemptions under the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. It found in favour of the facility on all issues and quashed the OIPC’s disclosure order.
Covenant Health v Alberta (Information and Privacy Commissioner), 2014 ABQB 562 (CanLII).
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