Electronic Medical Records. They hold quite a bit of information about all of us. Have you ever wondered who can look at them and for what purpose? Health care workers, such as your doctor, can access them in order to treat you. Your records could also be requested in relationship to a subpoena, warrant, or court order without your consent. Beyond that, no one should be looking at them without your explicit consent to do so. That’s how it rolls in Alberta, anyhow. It would seem to be the same in other provinces in Canada, like Ontario. Just this past week, a student was “slapped with [a] $25K fine for snooping on personal health info”.
When it comes to research in Alberta (the province in which A Course in Deception takes place), a researcher must receive explicit consent (usually this means ‘in writing’) from you before they can access your electronic medical records. This rule might have been breached by one of the characters in A Course in Deception. Was it for good reason? Would it ever be the “right thing” to do? What if it meant the difference between life and death?
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