In the aftermath of the deadly Lapu Lapu tragedy last April, dozens of people were rushed to hospitals to receive care, but some were victims of snooping.

Explanation:

Now, an investigation from B.C. Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael Harvey has found that 71 snooping incidents by 36 health-care workers happened, meaning their medical records were accessed without permission.

“When I say snooping, what I mean is the unauthorized access of a patient file by someone who doesn’t need to have access to it,” Harvey said.

Half of the patients treated after Lapu Lapu had their privacy breached, 16 in total.

The breaches happened across the Fraser Health, Vancouver Coastal Health and the Provincial Health Services Authorities and within Providence Health Care.

“We were obviously quite concerned once we learned about the extent of this, of this snooping, and so I launched an investigation,” Harvey said.

Consequences:

The report found that most of the access was driven by curiosity and some employees opened multiple files a day.

According to the report, those employees faced discipline ranging from suspensions to terminations and some were reported to their regulatory colleges.