A recent review report in a child custody case that goes back 50 years provides further proof of the difficulty of balancing privacy and the right to ask for personal information according to a privacy law expert.
The information former children in care and adopted people can get when seeking access to their records is regulated by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
Back in 2012 a former foster child whose name is not disclosed due privacy regulations, reached the Department of community Services seeking the names of his foster parents and the reasons why he was returned to his biological parents back in 1965.
During four years there was an informal resolution process between the former foster child, the Department of Community Services and the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Nova Scotia, trying to determine what information should be disclosed.
The Department of Community services released some information but withheld the names of the person´s foster parents, arguing that disclosing those names would result in “unreasonable invasion of third parties´ personal privacy.”
“There´s a fair amount of latitude in determining whether or not something is an unreasonable invasion of somebody´s privacy.” Says David Fraser, privacy and access of information lawyer at McInnes Cooper law firm.
In this case, the fact that it happened more than 50 years ago helped the Privacy Commissioner to determinate that disclosure of the names of the foster parents “wouldn’t be an invasion of their privacy,” says Fraser.
On April, 2017, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for Nova Scotia issued a review report of the case making some recommendations to the provincial Department of Community Services including to release the names of the foster parents.
In the following clip David Fraser, privacy and access of information lawyer explains what happen in this case
The Department of Community Services accepted some of the recommendation but they weren’t able to get back to me before deadline.
If the former foster child is not satisfied with the outcome of the review he can appeal to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.
For Mike Slayter, an adoption rights advocate the journey of finding truth is very familiar.
“People do not understand the serious impact on adult adoptees who are denied that very fundamental knowledge of knowing who they are.” He says.