As host of the Child, Youth and Family Crisis Line for Eastern Ontario, the Youth Services Bureau is committed to protecting the privacy of the "personal information" of its clients.
Over and above the Bureau's statutory obligations, the issues of confidentiality and privacy of information have always been central to the delivery of our services. The governing legislation and the ethical standards play determining roles in the decisions we make regarding the personal and private information the Bureau collects, uses and discloses.
The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has suggested that personal information includes any factual and subjective information, recorded or not, about an identifiable individual. This information includes but is not limited to:
This information may be used to distinguish, identify or contact a specific individual. It may also include information provided in a professional role in any form such as a personal e-mail address, home address or phone number. It does not include information normally found on business cards.
The Bureau is committed to providing the highest quality services to our clients. During the course of providing services, we gather and use personal information We collect information for the following purposes:
The Director of Human Resources of Youth Services Bureau is the Privacy Officer for the organization. The Privacy Officer along with management and staff are responsible for ensuring compliance with federal and provincial legislation. All Bureau employees, students and volunteers are responsible for ensuring that the personal information of our clients is protected.
Your consent will be required for the Bureau to collect, use or disclose your personal information. The staff of the Bureau will explain to you why we are collecting the information so that you can understand how it will be used or disclosed. Consent is not necessary to share information among staff within the Bureau; however personal information will only be shared among bureau employees on a need to know basis.
The form of the consent will vary depending on the service. In almost all circumstances we will obtain your expressed written consent. In some circumstances the consent may be oral. In our Telephone Crisis Service your consent may be recorded orally.
We will only use your personal information for the explicit purposes that it was collected, unless we receive your consent to use it for another purpose.
We will only disclose your personal information to someone else if we receive your written consent, if we are required to do so by law or in situations where there may be life threatening harm. If we are required to disclose your personal information we will inform you unless we are prohibited by law.
The Bureau will only collect information needed to fulfill the purposes we identify to you. We will not collect information indiscriminately.
Your personal information will only be kept for as long as is necessary for the fulfillment of the purposes we have identified to you. The Bureau has policies and procedures in place to ensure that we retain client files only as long as we are legally required to do so. These time frames vary depending on the services you will receive.
The Bureau will make every effort to ensure that the personal information collected, retained or disclosed is complete and up-to-date as is necessary for the purposes for which it is to be used. We will not routinely update personal information unless it is necessary to for the purpose for which it was collected.
Individuals can request that the personal information be updated or corrected. We will ask that you demonstrate the inaccuracy and then we will amend the information as required. If we have transmitted this inaccurate information to a third party we will ensure that this correction or amendment is provided to that party.
The Bureau is committed to safeguarding your personal information from unauthorized access, unintentional disclosure or theft regardless of the format in which it is held. Our computerized systems have firewalls and access to client databases are all password protected.
We store your personal information in locked file cabinets and there is restricted access to these areas. We have numerous policies that reflect these safeguarding measures.
We have service agreements with other organization that store/destroy Bureau information to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place and maintained to prevent unauthorized parties from gaining access to the information.
We will explain to you the privacy and confidentiality policies, the limitations and use of personal information at the first contact with the Bureau. This may be the first meeting, interview or telephone contact in the case of the Integrated Crisis Response Services.
We will make every effort to present this information in an understandable manner. We will make available to you contact information on the individual responsible for Bureau Policies and procedures, complaint processes, the types of personal information held by the Bureau, how it will be used, how to gain access and how to correct the information.
A hard copy of the Bureau's Privacy Policy can be requested by contacting:
Youth Services Bureau Privacy OfficerWe will inform you whether or not we hold personal information on you and will allow you access to your own personal information. If the file contains information about a third person you will only have access to that part if we receive consent of that other person. If you are over the age of 12, you will have to consent to others accessing your information.
There may be legal exceptions to the Bureau allowing you access to your personal information. These exceptions are found under (PHIPA) Personal Health Information Protection Act, (PIPEDA) Personal Information Protections of Electronic Documents Act and (CFSA) Child and Family Services Act. Under these legislations we can deny access to your personal information if access may cause serious harm to others, if we were required to disclose information for national security or law enforcement purposes or the disclosure could cause physical or emotional harm to a child.
Requests for access must be made in writing to the YSB Privacy Officer. The Privacy Officer will respond to your request within 30 days and at minimal or no cost. Generally you will have access to your information in the presence of a Bureau employee. This will allow for any interpretation or explanation of the information.
If you have a complaint about our policy, you can identify this concern in writing to:
Youth Services Bureau Privacy OfficerWe will investigate any complaints or inquiries and attempt to resolve them. If the complaint is justified we will take the appropriate measures to correct the errors.
If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint you can contact either the Ontario Privacy Commissioner for alleged breaches of PHIPA or the Privacy Commissioner of Canada for alleged breaches of PIPEDA. These organizations can be reached at:
Information and Privacy Commissioner/Ontario
