Privacy Statement

Protecting your privacy is important to the Middlesex-London Health Unit. In providing health services and health protection and promotion programs, information we collect about you is governed by one or more of the following three laws:

• Health Protection and Promotion Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.7 (HPPA)
• Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M56 (MFIPPA)
• Personal Health Information Protection Act, 2004, S.O. 2004, c. 3, Sch. A (PHIPA)

When Is Your Consent Required To Collect, Use, Keep Or Give Out Your Personal Information?

When you seek health-related services from the Health Unit we assume we have your permission to collect, use and share your personal health information as required to carry out our job, unless you specifically tell us otherwise. If some other health care provider needs this information to provide your care, we can give it to them unless you specifically tell us not to. You may change or withdraw your consent to the use and sharing of your information at any time by telling us in writing. If others who are not directly involved in your care want your information, we must ask your permission. Please note the laws listed above contain some exceptions to this requirement for your consent. If you have any questions about these exceptions, please contact our Privacy Officer.

When we require your personal information for participating in a program offered by the Health Unit, we will tell you verbally or in writing what information we are collecting, under what law we are allowed to collect this information, and who you can speak to if you have any questions. This is called "Notice of Collection".

Sharing Personal Information with Family and Others

The Health Unit will not share your personal or personal health information with family members or others who are not health care providers involved in your care, unless you consent to this or the law requires it. For a young child, consent is obtained from a legal parent or guardian. Under the law, we are not allowed to get consent from or give information to a parent who is not the legal guardian (such as those who only have right of access) unless we have the consent of the legal guardian. If an older child or youth has consented to her or his own care, then the Health Unit must get the older child or youth’s consent to release health information to a family member or others who are not health care providers involved in their care. The Health Unit determines the age of consent under the Health Care Consent Act at the time of providing health-related services to the older child or youth.

Your Health Card Number

The number on your Ontario Health Insurance Plan ("OHIP") card is your "Health Card Number". You will need to provide your Health Card Number to the Health Unit in order to receive certain health services. This information will not be shared with another institution or individual without your consent.

Research

Your personal or personal health information may be used for research projects that the Health Unit is conducting, either alone or with other organizations. Before we collect any information, we will tell you the purpose(s) the information is being collected and used for. Any information used in our research will be expressed solely in statistical terms. This means no information that could be identifiable to you will be in any report generated from the research.

Access to Personal and Personal Health Information

You have a right to see and get a copy of the information in your file, unless the law restricts access. You can request information verbally or in writing. Depending upon the amount of information you ask for, or additional actions that the Health Unit needs to take to provide the information, the law allows MLHU to charge you a fee. The Health Unit may waive this fee.

The Health Unit will respond to your request for information within 30 calendar days. If there is a delay in providing the information, we will notify you and respond as quickly as possible. When all or a part of a record cannot be provided, we will inform you why access is restricted and give the Health Unit’s legal authority for this refusal. For instance, the Health Unit is not permitted to disclose information that identifies another person, or that is the subject of a police investigation.

Correction of Your Information or Record

If your personal information changes or you notice a mistake or information is missing in your record, you have a right to ask us to correct your record. The Health Unit is required to respond within 30 days and will change the information or record if we can verify that the new information is correct. If we refuse to make the correction we will explain why we made this decision. You have the right to give us a letter objecting to our decision. This letter will be kept in your record. As well, you have a right to complain to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. Contact information for the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario is provided below.

Who to Contact at the Middlesex-London Health Unit regarding Privacy and Access to Information

The Health Unit’s Privacy Officer is the Manager, Access/Privacy and Special Projects. If you have a question about this privacy statement, the Health Unit’s privacy policy and procedure, or about any of the Health Unit’s information handling practices, please contact

• Privacy Officer
  Middlesex-London Health Unit
  50 King Street, London, Ontario N6A 5L7
  (519) 663-5317, Ext. 2251
  Email: privacy@mlhu.on.ca

Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario ("IPC/O")

If you do not agree with how the Health Unit has responded to your request for access to a record or correction of a record, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. For more information about how to make a complaint, please see the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s website at www.ipc.on.ca, or you may write to them at:

• Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario
  2 Bloor Street East
  Suite 1400
  Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8

Web Privacy Statement

When you visit the Middlesex-London Health Unit's websites, you do so anonymously - there is no need to tell us who you are. If you make enquiry to healthunit.com, we will ask you to give your name and mailing address or e-mail address for the purpose of responding to your enquiry. Only those who "need to know" will have access to the personal information provided.

Healthunit.com provides links to other websites. The Health Unit cannot ensure the privacy practices of other sites and encourages you to read their privacy policy before you provide any personal or personal health information.

The Middlesex-London Health Unit's public or "Internet" web server does not retain personal information collected beyond the time it takes to forward it on to a secure internal system for processing. Any email that you send to us through the Internet is unencrypted – so please do not send confidential information via email. In the event that you send an email to Middlesex-London Health Unit, the Health Unit may retain your email address, as well as any information contained in the email, on a secure internal system for responding to your request and tracking any follow-up action.

Encryption technology protects personal information you provide during transmission. When you are in an encrypted session, the web page will contain a notice stating "you are in a secure site". A security icon will also appear in either the lower left corner or the lower right corner of your browser window, depending on your browser. If encryption is not available through a Middlesex-London Health Unit website, an alternative means of communication is recommended (i.e. telephone call).

Personal and personal health information is disposed of according to Middlesex-London Health Unit's record retention schedule. To ensure personal and personal health information is unrecoverable, any paper records generated are shredded, and electronic media is wiped prior to disposal using a utility program or by physical destruction of the media.

Cookies

The Middlesex-London Health Unit website uses session cookies to identify you when you log into www.healthunit.com, which is similar to other websites which allow membership. This session cookie allows you to travel from page to page without being asked for your username and password each time you click a link. The session cookie is automatically deleted when you close your browser or when you are inactive on the website for a long period. Furthermore, we use a persistent cookie via Google Analytics to assist in anonymously tracking visitor statistics such as the number of visits to a web page and popular browser types in an effort to make informed decisions about the future direction of content and formats that will impact our audience.

Logging Practices

The Middlesex-London Health Unit logs the IP (Internet Protocol) address and clickstream data of site visitors. An IP address is the number automatically assigned to the computer or to the Internet Service Provider requesting a web address. Clickstream data, sometimes called "clickstream analytics", is the process of collecting and analyzing statistical information about how visitors interact with a website. The information may include things such as the general location of the visitor’s computer, the pages visited while on the Health Unit website and for how long they were visited. Other actions the visitor completes, for instance filling in an online form or downloading a brochure, may also be recorded. Clickstream data may also include certain basic information about the visitor’s computer, such as screen resolution and operating system.

Logged information and clickstream data may be recorded by the Middlesex-London Health Unit and its authorized agents only and is recorded in non-identifiable form. The information we collect is used for website evaluation, systems analysis and maintenance. The Middlesex-London Health Unit's clickstream data is anonymous. The Health Unit will not sell or share clickstream data and/or web log information to third parties.