July 27, 2023
This is a general notice to inform all individuals associated with Kawartha Centre of an incident which occurred on November 8, 2022. The incident involving personal health information was a result of a staff member email being compromised. Fortunately, we caught this quickly and were able to have the account frozen and the password changed. It appears that the email was hacked for a phishing scheme. It does not appear that the staff member’s contact list was accessed or any documents were accessed but this can not be guaranteed as email access in Office 365 allows access to One Drive where our documents are stored. The information included in our One Drive may include full name, date of birth, home address, research participation, medical information if communicated by a patient to staff via email prior to November 8, 2022.
The breach did not involve any financial, credit card, or social insurance number information.
Kawartha Centre has taken these steps to protect the personal health information in our care from further harm or similar circumstances:
· Initiated a security investigation;
· Addressed operational and technology updates triggered by the incident to improve confidentiality, such as strengthening technology safeguards and administrative policies and/procedures.
Kawartha Centre sincerely apologizes for the inconvenience and concern this incident causes you. Your information privacy is very important to us and we will continue to do everything we can to correct this situation and prevent it from happening again.
You may contact us with questions and concerns in the following ways:
· By calling our Privacy Contact at 705-749-3906 ext 213 · Sending an e-mail message to jill@kawarthacentre.com
or
· Addressing a letter to our mailing address at Kawartha Centre, 168 Brock St. Peterborough Ontario, K9H 2P4
Any individuals who believe they may be affected by this incident have the right to file a complaint with the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. They can be reached at:
2 Bloor Street East / 2 rue Bloor Est , Suite 1400
Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8
Toll Free: 1-800-387-0073
Sincerely,
Jill MacPhee OT Reg. (Ont), CCRP, Director of Clinical Operations