Information & Ethics committee  As a matter of fact, on the provincial level, it's B.C., Alberta, and Quebec that have substantially similar legislation. I believe that what the committee has heard to date is that B.C. and Alberta represent what the commissioner called the second generation of privacy laws, and that perhaps we should take some direction, based on the learnings over time and how those provinces have accommodated them.

Information & Ethics committee  The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities does have a policy position, and they allow the information to be collected. With respect to B.C., that was raised before, and its bylaw is quite old. It came into effect in 1997 and was effectively forced upon the college by the B.C.

Information & Ethics committee  Certainly on the personal information side, IMS has been a very strong supporter of patient privacy rights. When there was a suggestion that the information we have might be identifiable in some way, I would say to people that clearly it is illegal across the country for IMS to collect, use, or disclose any identifiable patient information without that individual's consent.

Information & Ethics committee  On the transborder issue, we have no personal health information stored in the U.S., but I'd refer the committee to two orders of the federal commissioner dealing precisely with that issue. She has ruled that contractual mechanisms between a company in Canada that outsources the data—

Information & Ethics committee  It is, and she's ruled that to be sufficient when somebody has objected.

Information & Ethics committee  Since we've mentioned and you've heard about the prescription issue or the medical record issue, I'll use that, if I might, to illustrate what we're talking about in the first section. For example, say you have a prescription. That's information that was prepared by a physician, but if it has identifiable information in it about the patient—the patient's name is still in it—that part is personal information about an identifiable individual, the patient, who did not prepare, compile, or disclose it.

Information & Ethics committee  —the patient, yes—it is not work product, so the information is not excluded. To get back to the same example, where none of the patient identifiers appear and it's again the physician who has prepared it, then it becomes work product information.

Information & Ethics committee  Correct.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right, if it's about another individual. That's correct.

Information & Ethics committee  If I might clarify a couple of things with respect to this particular issue, there was the finding on the complaints in the IMS situation of the previous commissioner. The Federal Court did not rule on that; it was dismissed on consent of all parties. Then last year a finding was issued by the commissioner's office, not on this particular type of information but on information related to real estate agents.

Information & Ethics committee  I'll let my colleague Gary Fabian answer that one.

Information & Ethics committee  In the example you provided, the medical record would not include any information about the patient, or the individual in your example who was in the accident, suffering back pain. We would not know—nor would the definition we propose for work product cover anything that would identify the patient, or the accident victim in that particular case.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. I think the difficulty with the case-by-case approach proposed by the commissioner is that it really doesn't give any legislative policy direction, as determined by Parliament, to the commissioner to interpret any individual case. In that situation, policy would effectively be left up to the commissioner, as opposed to the commissioner being required to apply the policy that government and Parliament had determined.

Information & Ethics committee  Certainly. You've heard from many witnesses who have appeared before you today who support a specific exclusion for the definition of work product information: David Loukidelis, the Privacy Commissioner of B.C., who indicated that the definition in B.C. has not created any concerns; Edith Cody-Rice and Don Brazier, on behalf of FETCO; the Canadian Bar Association and its summary of proposed amendments, submitted to Industry Canada; and the Insurance Bureau of Canada and CLHIA.

Information & Ethics committee  I've been IMS's chief privacy officer since 2000. We were one of the first companies in Canada to have such a position. I joined the company from the Ontario Ministry of Health, where I provided legal advice to the ministry on all privacy-related issues under the provincial public sector privacy and access law.