Canadian Drug Use Database: Privacy Concerns

Fears are growing in Canada over privacy issues following the announcement that a number of the country's largest drugstore chains are to pool their computer systems to create a nationwide private database.

Next month Rx Canada, a profit-making company, will begin coordinating the data, which it hopes to sell to pharmacies, provincial health ministries, consultants and drug plan insurers. Commercial sales of such data are illegal in provinces such as Quebec, but Rx Canada's organizers say that while individual privacy has to be protected, they do not yet have a blueprint. "That is a primary mandate for this fall's activity," said a spokesman.