When police services had access to the Ontario COVID-19 database, it was used 167 times by Timmins Police, according to chief John Gauthier.
At today's police services board meeting, Gauthier said a letter from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) was received in August. It asks the board to answer questions about how many times the database was used, and where the data is stored locally.
It's a request CCLA is making to all police services boards and police chiefs in Ontario, according to their website.
Earlier in the pandemic, police departments had access to the database where Gauthier said "every police service across the province could check whether or not someone was positive for COVID-19 and relay the information over to the attending officers for safety reasons.”
Access to the database ended July 20.
CCLA had filed a legal challenge to stop the disclosure of medical information. The litigation ended when the province revoked police access to it.
In Timmins, Gauthier said access to the database was limited to the dispatchers in the communications centre.
“It didn’t work very well, quite frankly, and we didn’t rely on it hardly whatsoever,” he said.
Gauthier said the information is not being stored locally, and was never transferred to the department's records management system.
According to the CCLA, across Ontario, the database was searched 96,815 times from April 17 to July 20.
A chart on its website based on information from the Ministry of Attorney General shows the number of times agencies accessed the database. In Northern Ontario, it shows Greater Sudbury Police Service accessed it 799 times, North Bay Police used it 383 times, and Sault Ste. Mare Police Service accessed it 179 times.
