If you don’t receive a response to your Request for Information under the Health Information Act, or you feel that the response is, for some reason incomplete or there are other issues with the response you receive, you may ask the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) to review the response.
You may ask the IPC to review any decision, act or failure to act by a health information custodian that relates to your access request or request for correction to your personal health information. You may also ask the IPC to review any incident which you feel has resulted in an improper collection, use or disclosure of your personal health information.
To ask for a review of any of these matters, you must do so in writing, either on a complaint form, which you can get on this website or by means of a letter to the IPC. While the IPC will accept a complaint by email, she will require that the complaint be perfected by providing a letter or form with your signature.
Your request for a review must be made within 60 days after the day you became aware of the circumstances giving rise to the request. The IPC may, however, accept a Request for Review after 60 days have passed in some circumstances. If you are submitting a Request for Review more than 60 days after you have the health information custodian’s response, you should provide reasons as to why the IPC should allow you a longer time to deliver your request.
The IPC does not generally accept requests for review or complaints via email, but may do so on the condition that signed copies of the request are mailed or delivered to her office.
The IPC may take steps to attempt to resolve the issue informally, but it this is not successful, she will collect all of the necessary information from both the health information custodian and the applicant or complainant, prepare a report and make recommendations, which will then be presented to the health information custodian for consideration. If the health information custodian chooses not to comply with the recommendations of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Applicant seeking records from the health information custodian has a right to appeal that decision to the Supreme Court of the Northwest Territories. There is no appeal from the decision of a health information custodian with respect to a breach of privacy complaint.
Inquiries/Reviews
If you need more information about how to ask the Information and Privacy Commissioner to conduct a review, please contact our office.