Several Canadians have complained to the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office in Toronto after being denied entry in the United States because of various mental illnesses that are kept in police databases and share with America. In particular, Lois Kamenitz, 65, of Toronto, was denied entry because she had once attempted to commit suicide.

Kamenitz says she was stopped at customs after showing her passport and asked to go to a secondary screening. There, a Customs and Border Protection officer told Kamenitz that he had information that police had attended her home in 2006.

“I was really perturbed,” Kamenitz says. “I couldn’t figure out what he meant. And then it dawned on me that he was referring to the 911 call my partner made when I attempted suicide.”

Kamenitz says she asked the officer how he had obtained her medical records.

“That was the only thing I could think of,” she says. “But he said, no, he didn’t have my medical records but he did have a contact note from the police that [they] had attended my home.”

Stanley Stylianos, program manager at the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office, says his organization has heard more than a dozen stories similar to Kamenitz’s.

This is where blanket information sharing fails. Kamenitz and others aren’t a threat to the United States, yet, another arrested in Canada is in a database that is shared with America. The fact that people who are merely arrested are being denied entry to the United States is shameful. Being arrested does not mean you are guilty of any crime, but, now, you can be kept from traveling simply for being suspected of a crime.

According to diplomatic cables released earlier this year by WikiLeaks, any information entered into the national Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) database is accessible to American authorities.

Local police officers take notes whenever they apprehend an individual or respond to a 911 call, and some of this information is then entered into the CPIC database, says Stylianos. He says that occasionally this can include non-violent mental health incidents in which police are involved.

In Kamenitz’s case, she has had counseling and no longer wants to commit suicide. She, too, is no threat, but is being treated like a criminal solely because she wanted to visit America. Kamenitz maintains that the police were at her house for a medical emergency and her information, therefore, should never have been placed into the Canadian criminal database.

Kamenitz was eventually allowed to board a plane to Los Angeles, four days after missing her initial flight. But in order to do so, she had to submit her medical records to the U.S. and get clearance from a Homeland Security-approved doctor in Toronto, who charged her $250 for the service.

Benson says the response from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers in Kamenitz’s case was fairly typical. “Now that the note from her doctor is on her records,” he says, “I wouldn’t expect her to have any more problems.”

Included in the Homeland Security forms Kamenitz was required to fill out were questions about whether she had a history of substance abuse and whether she had diseases, such as AIDS or tuberculosis.

It is absolutely disgusting that Kamenitz had to do any of this to enter the United States. Medical records are supposed to be private all the time and now her private, personal information is located in a US database where she has no control over how it will be used in the future.

Personal medical information should remain private and out of police databases. There is no need for any foreign government to ever have such information on file. The failure of the Canadian government to protect its citizens is a disgrace to all Canadians who simply wish to travel internationally for a vacation.