- Download the Guide
- Ontario’s Access and Privacy Legislation
Collecting personal information
- Are school boards limited in the amount or kind of personal information they may collect?
- Does a school board need consent to collect personal information about a student?
- When can a school board collect personal information indirectly?
- Does a school board need to give notice that it is collecting personal information?
- What are the rules for collecting, using, disclosing and requiring the production of Ontario Education Numbers?
- Using and disclosing personal information
- Consent to collect, use and disclose personal information
- Safeguarding and retaining information
Access to information
- How do students and parents access personal information?
- Do individuals have a right to access general records from a school board?
- Do students need to reach a certain age before they can exercise their access rights?
- How does a child’s age affect the parent’s right of access to personal information?
- Do non-custodial parents have a right to access a child’s school records?
- Correction of Personal Information
- Special Topics
What information may be disclosed in compassionate circumstances?
When there is a need to notify a close relative, friend or spouse about a student who is injured, ill or deceased, school boards may disclose personal information without consent in order to facilitate or enable contact.46 For example, if a young student is ill and the student’s parent cannot be reached, the school may decide it needs to disclose this information to someone at the parent’s workplace to help make contact with the parent. The information disclosed by the school should be limited to only that which will “facilitate contact” – in this case, it means that the school could disclose to the parent’s workplace that the child was ill and needs to be picked up, but should not disclose the nature of the illness or other details.
46 MFIPPA, s. 32(i)
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