by Barbara McIsaac, Q.C., and Nadia Effendi of Borden Ladner Gervais LLP
Introduction
On January 6, 2011, the Ontario Court of Appeal released a decision affirming the decision of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice concluding that the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, S.C. 2000, c. 5 (PIPEDA) prohibited a financial institution from disclosing the mortgage discharge statement of a mortgagor to a third party creditor.1
This decision is important, as it confirms that financial institutions cannot disclose financial information about one of their customers without the consent of that customer, unless one of the exceptions in PIPEDA allowing disclosure without consent applies.
