by Nevil Hunt
A gaping hole in Canada's privacy laws has been brought to light as a retailer tries to sell Canadians' pharmacy records to two grocery chains. The only prescription may be quick action by the federal government.
Zellers stores are in a legal battle with a group of its own pharmacists.
The pharmacy operators say the retail chain has no right to sell the prescription records of thousands of Canadians to the Loblaw and Metro grocery chains' own pharmacy departments.
The argument is financial, but for Canadians, it has highlighted a gap in privacy legislation.
The morning-after pill, a cream for a nasty rash, or maybe a dose for The Dose. Prozac, Rogaine or Viagra. A tube of Monistat. Tranquilizers. Foot fungus ointment: six times in a year. Those are the kinds of things on customers' files at the local pharmacy.
The question posed by the pharmacists seeking to stop that data from being transferred from Zellers is just who owns the information.
Zellers is selling many of its properties to the American retailer Target. While Target operates in-store pharmacies, it did not want to purchase the Zellers prescription files.
Zellers instead found Metro and Loblaws were interested buyers. Zellers stands to make more than $35 million by selling Canadians' information: info that was collected to serve people who believed they were dealing with one retailer and would continue to do so.
If the court considering the injunction blocking the sale decides to let the sale happen, the federal government should step in and freeze the sale. Not only is the transfer of information questionable, but it's not completely clear that Zellers has the right to sell the files.
At the very least, Zellers should be required to give notice to customers that they can opt out of the transfer. The customers should be allowed to claim their files, have the data transferred to the alternate pharmacy of their choice or get confirmation that the paperwork has been destroyed.
It's hard to believe Canadian privacy legislation doesn't already cover the transfer of this information without written permission of the customer. Perhaps the privacy laws we have today don't capture this scenario because no one imagined that a company would go quite so far to make a buck.
The nation's Health minister should be standing up in Parliament right now to table legislation to protect every Canadian from seeing their personal information transferred for money and without proper notice. If the federal government acted today, imagine the support for a beefed up privacy bill, both from the public and the opposition parties.
Zellers' own privacy policy has a section on the exchange of personal health information. The policy says it may share it "with the individual's other health services providers."
Given that Loblaws and Metro are not a health care provider to anyone who has never filled a prescription there, it appears the data sale might run afoul of this policy.
The management at Zellers has misread the situation. Maybe they were blinded by the money they could reap from selling the pharmacy information. Instead they should have been listening to their public relations people who must have been aware how volatile the privacy issue can become.
The pharmacy documents have a financial value because Loblaws and Metro obviously believe the customers will come with the files. But the more publicity the Zellers case receives, the fewer shoppers will be comfortable and the less valuable the deal becomes.
The bean counters at Zellers thought they were doing the right thing: making the company money. But they may be losing something much more valuable: the trust of their customers.
Should a pharmacy be able to sell files containing your information? Would you support fast action by the federal government to block the Zellers sale?
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