Apply allowed, although it ‘can delay the well timed launch’ of probably delicate data, says Info and Privateness Commissioner’s workplace
Editor’s observe: This text initially appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media web site devoted completely to protecting provincial politics at Queen’s Park.
Any time somebody seeks government-held data via Ontario’s information-disclosure system, there’s an opportunity it triggers an inner tripwire, deeming it “contentious.”
Who makes the decision is often a civil servant specializing in gathering, vetting, and handing over authorities paperwork to members of the general public. As soon as a freedom-of-information (FOI) request is flagged as contentious, it — and the data it might yield — turn into topic to stricter monitoring, which the premier’s and cupboard workplaces maintain looped in on.
Generally, “contentious issues management processes can delay the timely release of information,” mentioned the workplace that handles disputes between data seekers and the federal government. It has discovered that that is the case “especially when requests are politically sensitive or high-profile.”
The Info and Privateness Commissioner’s workplace says the federal government “must not interfere with the legal requirements for timely responses under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.” Nevertheless, the contentious points administration course of for FOIs isn’t in and of itself “inconsistent” with the regulation.
Successive provincial governments — together with, at the moment, Premier Doug Ford’s — have assigned FOI requests deemed contentious to a particular, extra carefully watched course of than these not given the label.
The Info and Privateness Commissioner’s workplace has confronted it time and again for the reason that late-Nineteen Nineties, a couple of years after Ontario’s FOI system was created.
Ford’s workplace didn’t reply earlier than this story’s publication to questions concerning the contentious FOI observe — together with how, and why, contentious FOIs are processed.
However, authorities data from six completely different provincial ministries provide an image of the way it at the moment works. Additionally they counsel the method is customary throughout the federal government.
Altogether, provincial authorities entities — together with its ministries, companies, boards, and extra — obtain tens of hundreds of FOI requests annually. They are often for any vary of issues, comparable to data a ministry retains on a person, which they’d wish to possess, to extremely delicate coverage plans. FOIs could be a key useful resource for journalists, legal professionals, teachers, opposition occasion researchers, and extra.
Public servants whose jobs embody processing FOI requests are accountable for figuring out whether or not one is contentious, in response to data from a number of ministries.
A doc the Ministry of Citizenship and Multiculturalism produced in 2022 says “access requests require (contentious) issues management when they have the potential for: controversy, conflict, (or) emotional human interest … media interest … criticism from stakeholders … negative public impact … health (and) safety risks … (or) questions in the house.”
A doc produced by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing this summer season notes, as effectively, that contentious requests could embody these from “media, MPP(s), (or the) opposition.”
Paperwork produced from two completely different ministries inside the final couple of years additionally every say that requests needs to be thought-about contentious in the event that they’re made by “a person or organization likely to publicly comment or disseminate the information.”
As soon as a public servant identifies an FOI request as contentious, they’re to immediate a collection of alerts to the deputy minister’s workplace, their ministry’s communications department, authorized providers department and minister’s workplace, and cupboard workplace, in response to data from a number of ministries.
From when an FOI request is obtained and deemed contentious to when data are disclosed, ministries will present common updates to the cupboard workplace. Ministries’ paperwork outlining how they’re dealt with counsel the frequency of those cupboard workplace updates varies between ministries, however is roughly as soon as per week.
The usual timeline for processing an FOI request underneath the Freedom of Info and Safety of Privateness Act is 30 days.
In line with a suggestion doc produced by the Ministry of Citizenship and Multiculturalism in 2022, cupboard workplace officers transient premier’s workplace workers on contentious requests weekly, as effectively.
Ministries will even give cupboard workplace a heads-up when data compelled by a contentious FOI request are about to be disclosed.
