Ottawa Hospital apologizes for privacy breach among unvaccinated employees

The Ottawa Hospital says it has apologized to employees whose names were mistakenly visible on a mass email to unvaccinated staff last week.

A letter from the hospital's human resources office, obtained by CTV News Ottawa, said a system-generated email sent Sept. 8 to "employees who have declined the COVID-19 vaccination" included staff email addresses in the "To" section and not as blind carbon copies. The original email, which CTV News Ottawa has not seen, was an invitation to complete an educational module about COVID-19 vaccination. In a statement, the Ottawa Hospital said the issue was addressed promptly. "This past week, an email was sent from one of our software systems to a list of unvaccinated staff members, inviting them to complete a vaccine education session. The staff names were unfortunately visible," the statement said. "The email was immediately recalled and all copies were deleted. An apology and explanation was sent to the staff members affected. TOH’s Information and Privacy Office investigated the matter and reported it to the Information and Privacy Commissioner."