Report a privacy breach at your business

Businesses subject to PIPEDA have certain obligations following a breach of security safeguards. These may include reporting to our office and notifying affected individuals.

For more information on businesses’ obligations when a breach of security safeguards happens, see our guidance on what you need to know about mandatory reporting of breaches of security safeguards.

We encourage organizations to use the PIPEDA breach report form (PDF format) when reporting a breach to our office, however, organizations can report in a format they see fit provided that the submission captures all of the necessary information. Instructions on how to send in a report are included in the form.

We also encourage organizations to submit their completed breach report through our secure breach reporting portal:

• Submitting new breach reports: you are reporting a new privacy breach and providing documents relevant to the breach report;
• Adding documents to existing reports: you are following up with further information and already have a temporary tracking number or PIPEDA file number.

For more information or to discuss a potential breach report, please call one of our breach response officers at 819-994-5444 or toll-free at 1-800-282-1376.

Using fillable forms

• If you are having trouble viewing or filling out the form, you may need to save it on your computer first (on a PC, right click the link to save).
• Then open the form using a compatible PDF viewer such as Adobe Reader 9 or higher, or other PDF viewers such as Foxit Reader, PDF-XChange Viewer, and Nuance PDF Reader. Some form features may not be fully supported on a non-Adobe reader. These PDF viewers can be obtained for free from the vendors’ web sites.