Hon Rona Ambrose
Minister of Health
House of Commons
Ottawa, ON
K1A 0A6
November 26, 2013
Dear Minister,
We were alarmed to hear of the recent privacy breach involving the medical marijuana access program (MMAP), whereby over 40,000 MMAP participants were sent information about the program via regular mail, which revealed their confidential address information.
We are writing to ensure you will be following up with your department about this grave error. We would like you to explain your department policies on privacy and whether they were followed in this instance. We would like to know how such an error occurred, and what your department will be doing for those affected, given that the exposure of their personal information has put them at-risk. We would also like to know what you are doing to ensure this does not happen again.
We are seriously concerned that this government continues to fail to protect the privacy of Canadians and for those affected by this latest breach. We look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Libby Davies, MP Charlie Angus, MP
Vancouver East Timmins-James Bay
NDP Spokesperson for Health NDP Spokesperson for Ethics