Sarnia-Lambton's MPP has introduced a private member's bill in the Ontario legislature to modernize privacy rights for former foster children.
Bob Bailey said the Fostering Privacy Fairness Act would seal foster care records, which contain deeply personal and intimate information, when an individual reaches the age of 21, just like juvenile offenders.
"Whether you're 30, 40, 50 years old, those records can still be accessed, say by nosy staff or someone inadvertently got access to them, and we know the internet now, leaving things on there, people can still access them," said Bailey.
The act was developed with advice from the Child Welfare Political Action Committee, which claims to be aware of many instances where foster files were accessed inappropriately and interfered with jobs and board governance opportunities, custody disputes in family court and in child adoptions.
"There's this misnomer out there that, and there's no proven facts to back it up, that if you were raised in foster care yourself and were say abused, then they think the possibility that you could, as a parent later on in life, do the same thing to your own children."
Bailey said the bill will be debated in the spring.
He said there are an estimated 100,000-plus former Crown wards in Ontario, not including other types of former youth in care, that will be impacted by the bill.
He said there have been at least 73 breaches related to snooping and cyber attacks reported to the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario since January.