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Summary
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The Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal (the Tribunal) received a two-part request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act). One part of the request was for a Tribunal hearing list entitled "Cases in a Hearing Block", including unit numbers.
In Order PO-2265, former Assistant Commissioner Tom Mitchinson dealt with a similar request made to the Tribunal for a record entitled "Cases in a Hearing Block with Party Names". The Tribunal, which had previously disclosed earlier versions of this record, denied access. In its decision letter the Tribunal stated the following:
Hearing lists of the type described above were previously provided to the Tenant Duty Counsel Program. However, in Order PO-2109, Assistant Commissioner Tom Mitchinson found that names and addresses of parties to Tribunal applications would meet the definition of personal information in section 2 of [the Act]. Further, the adjudicator found that this information should fall within the scope of the mandatory exemption under section 21 of [the Act] and should not be disclosed. As a result of this order, the Tribunal reviewed its policies related to disclosure of information, and determined it could no longer provide hearing lists that contain the names and addresses of the parties to the applications.
Pursuant to Order PO-2109, I consider the information that you have requested to be personal information pursuant to the definition in section 2 of [the Act], and that disclosure of the information would constitute an unjustified invasion of personal privacy pursuant to section 21 of [the Act].
The former Assistant Commissioner went on to find that the names of the tenants are personal information. Furthermore, the address of the tenant, in particular, the street address, city, postal code and specific unit number is also personal information. The former Assistant Commissioner did make the distinction that without the unit numbers, a specific resident of a residential rental accommodation could not be identified, and as such the address without unit number is not personal information.
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