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Document
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P-1168
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File #
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P-9500482
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: The appellant submitted a request to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (the Ministry) pursuant to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ). The request was set out in three parts, all of which related to investigations conducted by the Ministry concerning the building in which the appellant lives. The Ministry located the responsive records and provided some of them to the appellant. The Ministry denied access to the balance of the records on the basis of the following exemptions in the Act : law enforcement - sections 14(1)(a), (b) and (d) invasion of privacy - section 21(1) discretion to refuse requester's own information - section 49(a) The appellant filed an appeal of the Ministry's decision. During mediation, the appellant indicated that he was only appealing the Ministry's decision in response to part three of his request. In addition, he limited the scope of the information in these records. This office sent a Notice of Inquiry to the Ministry and the appellant. The Ministry subsequently sent the appellant those records containing only his personal information, thereby removing section 49(a) of the Act from the scope of this appeal. Representations on the remaining issues and records were received from both the Ministry and the appellant. The records now at issue may be divided into three groups and described as follows: (1) Pages 46-57: These pages constitute the April 1995 Rent Roll for the building in which the appellant resides. The appellant is not seeking access to the names of the tenants. (2) Pages 58-66, 91-108, and 124-166: These documents include letters written by a lawyer to a representative of the landlord concerning various situations involving her clients who are tenants in the building. They also contain information provided by the tenants to the lawyer, such as copies of notices of rent increases and correspondence they received from the landlord, as well as correspondence the tenants had sent to the landlord. The appellant is not seeking access to the personal information of any of the individuals in this documentation. (3) Pages 167-429: These pages are copies of rent surveys completed by some of the tenants in the building and returned to the Ministry. The appellant is only seeking access to the apartment numbers of those tenants who returned the surveys. Attached to most of the surveys is a computerized printout of the maximum rent for the units in the building. The Ministry states that it regularly discloses this information and that the appellant should advise if he is interested in obtaining access to these figures. The Ministry claims that each of the exemptions applies to each of the records. DISCUSSION: PERSONAL INFORMATION Under section 2(1) of the Act , "personal information" is defined, in part, to mean recorded information about an identifiable individual, including information relating to financial transactions in which the individual has been involved and the individual's name where it appears with other personal information relating to the individual or where the disclosure of the name would reveal other personal information about the individual. I have reviewed the records to determine if they contain personal information. The Rent Roll (pages 46-57) contains a listing of the apartment numbers, tenants' names, and the dollar amounts for the last month's rent, the April unit rent, parking charges, total rent and the difference between the last month's rent and the April total for each apartment. In my view, information concerning the amount of rent and other charges is personal information. Even with the removal of the tenants' names, the dollar figures are linked to an apartment number. It is a relatively simple matter for anyone to use these apartment numbers to identify the unit occupants. This is especially true for an individual such as the appellant who is another tenant in the building. In Order P-230, Commissioner Tom Wright stated: I believe that provisions of the Act relating to protection of personal privacy should not be read in a restrictive manner. If there is a reasonable expectation that the individual can be identified from the information, then such information qualifies under subsection 2(1) as personal information. Applying this reasoning to the Rent Roll, I find that there is a reasonable expectation that the tenants can be identified from their unit numbers. Accordingly, even if the names of the tenants are removed, the information contained in this record constitutes their personal information. The same analysis applies to group three of the records, the rent surveys (pages 167-429). If the appellant were provided with only the unit numbers of those individuals who returned the surveys, the tenants themselves could be identified. The Ministry submits, and I agree, that the mere fact that a tenant provided a completed form to the Ministry constitutes the personal information of the individual. The Ministry characterizes such information as "correspondence sent to the Ministry that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature". This definition of personal information is found in section 2(1)(f) of the Act . The Ministry states that the Enforcement Unit has a very clear policy in respect of such information. It indicates that the information is treated as confidential unless the person expressly consents to the release or unless a prosecution is commenced. Neither of these circumstances exist in the present case. On the basis of the foregoing information, I find that those tenants who completed the surveys held a reasonable expectation that neither their identity nor the information contained in the survey would be disclosed. Accordingly, I find that the apartment numbers of those tenants who returned the surveys constitutes the personal information of these individuals. The group two records (pages 58-66, 91-108, and 124-166) indicate that certain tenants sought the assistance of counsel at a legal clinic. These records contain the name and unit numbers of these individuals as well as very detailed information concerning their payments to the landlord over several years as well as their interactions with the landlord. The appellant states that he is not seeking access to the personal information of any ind
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Anita Fineberg
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Published
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Apr 18, 1996
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Type
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Order
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2013
Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario. All Rights Reserved.
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