The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for B.C. found that millions of highly sensitive personal health records about people accessing healthcare in B.C. were left "disturbingly" vulnerable to leaks after the provincewide health authority failed to address security concerns in recent years. The personal information includes all manner of interactions with the healthcare system, from vaccination status to mental health evaluations to a record of sexually transmitted infections. It also includes any information about pregnancies as well as drug and alcohol use. The report makes seven recommendations to the PHSA about how the system’s privacy and security risks can be addressed. These include:
- Acquiring, configuring and deploying a privacy-tailored proactive audit system;
- Ensuring multi-factor authentication that meets Provincial Standards to log onto the system;
- Encrypting personal information within the database at rest; and
- Creating security architecture that includes systems design documents and operations manuals for each component of the system.
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