TORONTO - The province's privacy watchdog is ordering Cancer Care Ontario to stop sending screening reports to doctors in paper format.
Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian says the agency must find a more secure method to transfer the results, which contain personal health information.
She says the agency has decided to develop its own web portal for the delivery of the reports, but will have to report back to her office to ensure it's secure.
Cavoukian made the order after a privacy breach involved the personal health information of more than 7,000 people.
The agency told Cavoukian in June that it couldn't confirm delivery screening reports from its ColonCancerCheck program.
The reports were sent to doctors across Ontario last February and March using Canada Post's Xpresspost courier service.
Cavoukian says the agency shouldn't have used a courier service to send paper-based records, which could easily be read, when other options were available.
