A new report by an Ontario Court of Appeals justice regarding police collection of personal information recommends banning random “street checks” conducted by police and that no details gathered during street checks be used in any type of police reference check going forward.
Justice Michael Tulloch released his Report of The Independent Street Checks Review Friday morning. The report was a wide-ranging review of the implementation of Regulation 58/16, Collection of Identifying Information in Certain Circumstances – Prohibition and Duties.
Introduced in 2016, the regulation outlined new rules about police collection of identifying information in certain circumstances, a practice commonly referred to as street checks or carding.
Specifically, Tulloch wrote in his report that no information collected in a regulated police interaction, whether before or after the regulation was implemented Jan. 1, 2017, should be used to classify a person as being known to the police or result in an entry on an individual’s police check of any kind.
Tulloch’s report comes a few months after the Ontario government implemented the Police Record Checks Reform Act, which in part banned the disclosure of non-conviction mental health police records on police reference checks. CMHA Ontario is pleased that Tulloch has recommended enforcement of the Police Record Checks Reform Act to be stipulated in the regulation.
The protection of privacy for non-conviction records is something CMHA Ontario has been supporting for over a decade. Mental health police records are often generated as a result of medical intervention, and there have been cases where an individual’s mental health police record had been included on a police reference check and have resulted in that person being turned down for volunteer work, jobs, school placements and cross-border travel.
Read more about the Police Record Checks Reform Act. https://ontario.cmha.ca/news/cmha-ontario-welcomes-implementation-of-police-records-check-reform-act/
Read Justice Tulloch’s report. http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/english/Policing/StreetChecks/ReportIndependentStreetChecksReview2018.html