The Ontario Securities Commission has laid new criminal and quasi-criminal charges against five more people in connection with allegations that confidential maternity ward records from two Toronto-area hospitals were stolen and used to market registered educations savings plan investments to new mothers.
Last fall, the province’s financial markets regulator laid quasi-criminal charges against a Pickering, Ont., woman, a former clerk at Rouge Valley Centenary hospital in east Toronto, after an unknown number of new mothers were mysteriously contacted by RESP salespeople after bringing their new babies home. The privacy commissioner launched a probe and a class action lawsuit on behalf of patients was filed against the hospital.
Michael Crystal, a lawyer behind a class-action lawsuit against the hospitals on behalf of the up to 14,000 patients he says may have been affected, said he has been in touch with at least 600 people who say their privacy was breached. He said the OSC is clearly taking the allegations very seriously.
JEFF GRAY – Globe and Mail – June 02, 2015.