LifeLabs goes to court to block results of investigation into 2019 privacy breach

Two of Canada’s provincial privacy officers say that they’re still unable to release a full report about last year’s security breach at LifeLabs because the company has gone to court to stop them.

A joint statement from the privacy commissioners for Ontario and British Columbia says the Toronto-based chain of medical labs has agreed to comply with their orders and recommendations.

They say LifeLabs has sought a court order preventing the public release of some of the report, claiming it contains information that’s privileged or otherwise confidential.

But Ontario’s Patricia Kosseim and B.C.’s Michael McEvoy say they believe it’s vital to bring to light the underlying causes of a privacy breach involving information of up to 15 million customers.

The commissioners reported last month that LifeLabs had failed to put in place reasonable safeguards and it had broken Ontario and B.C.’s information protection laws.

LifeLabs said at the time that it had taken a number of steps to accelerate its cybersecurity strategy and practices to strengthen its information security system.

The company was not immediately available for comment about the commissioners’ latest statement.