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Document
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PO-1801
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File #
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PA-000017-1
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Institution/HIC
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Ministry of the Attorney General
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Summary
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NATURE OF THE APPEAL: The appellant made a request to the Ministry of the Attorney General (the Ministry) under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act ) for access to: . . . copies of all personal information pertaining to me in your custody. The request is for my personal information contained within any data bank, or any written file, to include any notes generated by any and all employees of the institution in the performance of their duties. The appellant was the recipient of spousal and child support payments made by her former spouse (the affected person) through the Ministry's Family Responsibility Office (the FRO) pursuant to a court order. The appellant also indicated that she was not seeking access to any personal information relating to "third parties" who are not Ministry employees. The Mediator assigned to the file by this office clarified with the appellant that she did not wish to exclude the personal information of her former spouse, however. The Ministry located records responsive to the request and granted access to them, in part. Access to the remaining portions of the records was denied under section 21(1) of the Act (invasion of privacy), with reference to the presumptions against disclosure in sections 21(3)(d) (information relating to employment or educational history) and 21(3)(f) (information describing an individual's finances, income, assets, liabilities, net worth, bank balances, financial history or activities or creditworthiness). The appellant appealed the Ministry's decision to deny access to the undisclosed information and maintained that additional records responsive to her request should exist. Specifically, the appellant refers to several facsimile transmissions which she sent to the FRO regarding the suspension of her support payments. She submits that these documents, as well as any others which relate to the suspension, should have been made available to her. The Ministry also advised the appellant that certain portions of Record 210 contained information which was not responsive to her request. During the mediation stage of the appeal, the appellant agreed that these portions of Record 210 were not responsive and they are no longer at issue in this appeal. Because the Mediator determined that some of the records may contain the personal information of the appellant, the Mediator's Report provided to the parties also raised the possible application of section 49(b) to those records. I provided a Notice of Inquiry to the Ministry and the affected person soliciting their representations on the issues in this appeal. I received submissions from both parties. With its agreement, the complete representations of the Ministry were shared with the appellant, along with a Notice of Inquiry which was modified following the receipt of the other parties' submissions. The appellant also submitted representations. In her submissions, the appellant takes the position that throughout the processing of the request and the subsequent appeal, she has never sought access to any of the personal information of her former husband or any other individual. Accordingly, she now asserts that any such personal information contained in the records does not form part of this appeal. While this is contrary to what was clearly communicated to the Mediator prior to the Inquiry stage of the process, I will assume that this represents the current position of the appellant with respect to the scope of this appeal. The records which were identified as being at issue at the time the Notice of Inquiry was prepared consisted of the following: • the undisclosed portions of Records 35-40, 54, 64, 65, 67, 69, 71, 74, 76, 78, 80, 81, 84, 86, 87, 90-92, 94-97, 100-105, 121, 155, 158-161, 166-171, 174-177, 179, 180, 183, 189, 191, 192, 227, 233 and 235; and •Records 50, 57, 59, 60, 106-110, 126, 156, 157, 163, 165, 174, 178, 181, 184, 186, 190, 193, 228, 230, 231, 236 and 237 in their entirety. These records represent printouts of various computer-generated information, internal Ministry notes and correspondence relating to the payment of spousal and child support to the appellant through the FRO from the affected person. The list of records at issue following the appellant's narrowing of the scope of the appeal has been significantly reduced since the majority of the undisclosed portions of the records or the complete records relate to other identifiable individuals. I will first address the issue of "personal information" in my discussion below in order to determine whether any of the remaining information relates solely to the appellant or contains no personal information. DISCUSSION: PERSONAL INFORMATION Section 2(1) of the Act defines the term "personal information" as follows: "personal information" means recorded information about an identifiable individual, including, (a) information relating to the race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation or marital or family status of the individual, (b) information relating to the education or the medical, psychiatric, psychological, criminal or employment history of the individual or information relating to financial transactions in which the individual has been involved, (c) any identifying number, symbol or other particular assigned to the individual, (d) the address, telephone number, fingerprints or blood type of the individual, (e) the personal opinions or views of the individual except where they relate to another individual, (f) correspondence sent to an institution by the individual that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature, and replies to that correspondence that would reveal the contents of the original correspondence, (g) the views or opinions of another individual about the individual, and (h) the individual's name where it appears with other personal information relating to the individual or where the disclosure of the name would rev
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Legislation
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Subject Index
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Signed by
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Donald Hale
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Published
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Jul 07, 2000
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Type
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Order
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