Stop automatically disclosing suicide attempts: Privacy czar to cops
April 18, 2014
Ann Cavoukian, Canada’s Privacy Commissioner, has issued a report on problems faced by some suicide attempt survivors at the US-Canadian border, and is calling for immediate changes to Canadian information-sharing protocols to prevent such issues in the future. Cavoukian’s office investigated several complaints that U.S. border officials had refused entry to Canadians on the basis of their previous suicide attempts. Cavoukian said in the report, “I kept wondering — how could this be happening in my jurisdiction, where personal health information is so strongly protected?” The investigation showed that each Canadian police department has its own rules about uploading information to the Canadian Police Information Centre database, which is shared by many police departments in both Canada and the United States. While some departments decide on a case-by-case basis what to upload, Toronto automatically shares all information on suicide threats and attempts – a practice which Cavoukian declares must end. Instead, she says, inclusion of an incident in the database should be decided based on several specific criteria of potential harm, and people should have the chance to voluntarily share relevant information with the police about treatment and recovery since the incident.
Spark Extra! Read Crossing the Line: The Indiscriminate Disclosure of Attempted Suicide Information to US Border Officials via CPIC.