Adding Alberta health-care numbers to licences increases fraud risk: privacy watchdog

EDMONTON – Alberta’s privacy watchdog is raising concerns about the government’s plan to add health-care numbers to driver’s licences and other forms of identification.

Information and privacy commissioner Diane McLeod said it would increase the risk of fraud as the numbers could be obtained outside of health-care settings.

“Personal health numbers of Canadians are a sought-after commodity on the dark web due to our publicly funded health-care system,” McLeod wrote in a letter to government, published Monday.

“Use of someone’s (personal health number) to access medical care could result in the wrong health information appearing in their record, which could cause them harm.”

The government announced the move last month, saying it would make it more convenient for Albertans to access health care as they wouldn’t have to carry multiple cards to prove their identity. It also plans to add mandatory citizenship markers to licences and other forms of ID. 

McLeod said she had warned the government to abandon its plan because of the increased risk of fraud, and because the Alberta government body responsible for driver’s licences, the Registrar of Motor Vehicles, isn’t subject to privacy laws.

“As such, they will hold highly sensitive health information of all Albertans, with no corresponding duty to protect this information and no consequences for breaches,” McLeod wrote.

“There is also no oversight by my office.”

Primary Health Services Minister Adriana LaGrange’s office, in a statement Tuesday, said protecting personal information and personal health numbers is a priority, but the government was going to move ahead with its plan.

“(The legislation) clarifies that anyone who collects a driver’s licence or ID who is not authorized to use a personal health number cannot use it for any purpose,” her office said.

It also said that the government is developing further regulations regarding the motor vehicle registrar and is to discuss those changes with McLeod.

“Ministries such as Service Alberta, Red Tape Reduction, and Technology and Innovation will not be authorized to use this information for other purposes, and all departments are required to maintain Albertans’ personal and health information in accordance with provincial privacy legislation,” LaGrange’s office statement said. 

McLeod said the legislation, tabled last week, raises other privacy concerns as well, though she is commending the government for accepting a number of recommendations she made before the bill was brought forward.

“That said, several of my recommendations have not been addressed in the amendments and some recommendations have been only partially addressed,” she wrote.

One outstanding area of concern she covers in the letter is how the safety of health information is to be protected from artificial intelligence. Another concern is about new provisions for abandoned health records, which she said have become a pressing issue of late as the number of abandoned records has significantly increased.

Health records are considered abandoned when physicians, for example, retire, die, leave Alberta or otherwise leave behind patient records. In one case McLeod reported on last year, a storage space was discovered with close to 60 boxes of health records that used to belong to a Calgary physician who had retired nearly a decade earlier.

The new rules, outlined in McLeod’s letter, say that when a person or entity that isn’t a health authority or affiliate of one discovers abandoned health records, they must inform the minister, who can then direct another person or regulatory college to assume custody of the records.

McLeod wrote that it’s unclear what happens next and points out that regulatory colleges aren’t currently considered eligible custodians of health records.

“Will individuals be notified about where their records are to obtain a copy or for purposes of ongoing care?” she wrote. 

“It is unclear what will happen if ‘another person’ is not a custodian or if they are not subject to privacy laws at all.”

LaGrange’s office said that the government is reviewing McLeod’s outstanding recommendations and that further regulations will be developed after the bill is passed in the legislature.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2025.