Privacy — psychology, counselling therapy and social work (Nova Scotia)
A ‘custodian’ includes a regulated health professional, or a person who operates a group practice of regulated health professionals, who has custody or control of personal health information in connection with their powers or duties (s. 3(1)(f)(i)). ‘Regulated health professional’ means a health professional licensed or registered to provide health care under a provincial Act specific to their profession, who provides health care (s. 3(1)(w)). TWO CARVE-OUTS DECIDE MOST REAL CASES. First, a regulated health professional who is NOT providing health care is not a custodian (s. 6(1)(d)). Second, and far more commonly: a person is NOT a custodian in respect of personal health information they collect, use or disclose while acting as an AGENT of a custodian (s. 6(2)). An ‘agent’ is anyone authorized to act for the custodian, for the custodian’s purposes, whether or not paid — expressly including employees and volunteers (s. 3(1)(aaa)). So an employed clinician at a health authority is an agent, and the institution is the custodian; a clinician in private practice is the custodian themselves. A custodian must designate one or more contact persons to facilitate compliance, inform agents of their duties, respond to inquiries and to access and correction requests, receive complaints, train staff, and develop explanatory materials (s. 67(1)) — and a custodian who is a natural person and designates no one MUST perform those functions personally (s. 67(2)). A custodian must also make available to the public a written statement describing its information practices (s. 68).
“3(1)(w) ‘regulated health professional’ means a health professional who is licensed or registered to provide health care under an Act of the Province specific to his or her profession and who provides health care or who is a member of a class of persons prescribed as regulated health professionals” … “6(2) Except as prescribed, a person described in subclause 3(f)(i) is not a custodian in respect of personal health information that the person collects, uses or discloses while performing the person’s powers or duties when an agent of a custodian.” — Personal Health Information Act, S.N.S. 2010, c. 41 (consolidation to April 1, 2026)