Names of unvaccinated employees revealed in Canada

The Ottawa Hospital’s human resources office admitted a data breach caused by a mass email revealing the identities of unvaccinated staff members, CTV News Ottawa reported. The system-generated email was sent on September 8th to employees who had declined the COVID-19 vaccination, making their email addresses inadvertently visible in the recipient section.

The reason for sending the email was the hospital’s expectation that every member would get vaccinated to ensure the safety of the community. To achieve this, education was also to be provided to unvaccinated employees. They were to be invited via email to attend a respective education session.

The hospital already apologized to the affected employees and made efforts to resolve the issue. The contacted IT services immediately recalled the emails, removed it from all inboxes and deleted the copies. Moreover, all those who forwarded the email to personal accounts were asked to delete it. Following an investigation by the hospital’s privacy office, a report to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has been made as well.

Allegedly, this data breach involved 391 employees whose names were disclosed. However, the number was not officially confirmed by the hospital.

Conclusively, the hospital said in a statement explaining the case:

Health-care workers have worked tirelessly to protect our communities throughout the pandemic, and they deserve protection and support to enable them to do their jobs safely, and to the best of their abilities.