Private clinics in Canada are selling personal health data: study – CTV
May 12, 2025
Private clinics in Canada are selling access to personal health data without patients’ knowledge, according to a new study which says clients in the pharmaceutical industry are paying millions for this information.
“This is not how patients want their data to be used,” lead author Dr. Sheryl Spithoff told CTV’s Your Morning on Monday. “Patients are generally fine with sharing their data if it’s going to be used for research and health system improvement… but they’re very reluctant to have their data shared or held with for-profit companies.”
Spithoff is a family physician and scientist at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto. Published in the journal JAMA Network Open early this month, the new study focused on two unnamed health data companies that each had access to between one and two million patient records.
“The entities involved in the primary care medical record industry in Canada—chains of for-profit primary care clinics, physicians, commercial data brokers, and pharmaceutical companies—work together to convert patient medical records into commercial assets,” the study explains. “These assets are largely used to further the interests of the pharmaceutical companies.”
