Access to Information
Freedom of Information requests
In this section, we’ll discuss access to information, and talk about both Freedom of Information — or “FOI” — and proactive disclosures of information outside of the FOI process.
The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA) provides individuals a right to access their own personal information held by public bodies, as well as general information about government operations, programs and services – with limited exceptions.
The BCER is committed to expanding the public availability of government information and data through the disclosure of information without a formal FOI request. Whenever possible, information is released to the public as permitted or required by law.
Anyone can make an FOI request. We have a responsibility to be open, transparent and to provide people with the records to which they have a right of access. We receive FOI requests from a wide variety of applicants, such as: industry, individuals, political parties, the media, law firms, businesses, researchers, interest groups and other governments.
A person can ask for any record through FOI, but the request needs to be clear enough for an employee to identify the record. For the purpose of FOI, a record includes anything on which information is recorded or stored.
Access to information in a record is granted based on a line-by-line review, to ensure that the information is legally appropriate for release to the applicant that has asked for it, as permitted or required by law.
BCER employees have a “duty to assist” an applicant by taking all reasonable steps to respond quickly and accurately.
Duty to Assist:
Employees have a responsibility to be open and to connect people with the records to which they have a right of access, even if the request wasn’t necessarily worded clearly. You must look to fulfill the underlying intent of the request.
Records & Information Services (RIS) and you: a partnership
RIS is the centralized point of contact for processing BCER FOI requests. FOIPPA specialists administer the day-to-day work of providing timely responses to FOI requests received by the Regulator. The FOI team works with program areas to search and gather records. RIS works closely with you, because you are the subject matter expert on the records you work with. You know what information you hold, and whether the information is responsive to a FOI request.
You are in the best position to identify whether something may be harmful if it were released — you’re not expected to know what section of FOIPPA may apply in terms of removing information. But you should let RIS know if you have additional information that may be relevant to the decision about whether information should be severed.
Severing Information:
There are reasons the Regulator will remove – or ‘sever’ – information from a record prior to releasing it to an applicant.
Ultimately, disclosure recommendations are made by the RIS FOIPPA Specialist and based, in part, on the context you provide regarding possible harms to government or third parties. A final decision with respect to disclosure, relying on RIS’s recommendations and supported by your input, is made by the delegated head for the BCER.
The FOI team at the BCER are the experts when it comes to processing FOI requests. They have the expertise required to apply FOIPPA, to manage the legislated timelines, and to communicate with the applicant that made the FOI request. RIS also possesses the technology required to effectively sever information from records as required or permitted by FOIPPA.
It’s important to note that FOIPPA includes timelines for responding to FOI requests.
The five stages of an FOI request
Want to learn even more about the FOI process?
These links are recommended:
How to fulfill your duty to assist
BCER employees must make every reasonable effort to assist FOI applicants, and to respond to every FOI request openly, accurately, completely and without delay. After all, access to information is a foundational democratic principle.
The “duty to assist” goes beyond just meeting the letter of the law — it involves providing an excellent service experience to each applicant.
To meet your duty to assist an FOI applicant, you need to interpret FOI requests in the best interest of the applicant. This means steering clear of overly narrow interpretations, requesting clarification of requests when necessary and ensuring you’re being diligent in your search for responsive records.
To fufill your duty to assist:
- Adequately interpret FOI requests as a fair and rational person would expect – and in good faith
- Make a solid effort to discern the intent and goal of the requestor
- Conduct thorough searches for records (e.g. Outlook, Shared Drives, Teams, OneDrive, electronic systems, databases and any other office recordkeeping system) and document the search effort
FOI: The search process
A diligent search for records is one of the most important things you can do to assist people in accessing the information that they want. You are responsible for searching anywhere you have reason to believe recorded information might be stored that could be relevant to the request.
The BCER needs to provide evidence that a thorough and comprehensive search has been conducted. That’s why it’s very important that you document the details of your efforts, as well as an explanation in the event of a no-records response. Following good records management practices within your email and recordkeeping systems makes searching for records and responding to FOI requests much easier.
The search process must be thorough and widespread enough to ensure that all responsive records are located.
As we’ve already learned, emails are only one type of government records, and an adequate search for records that could be responsive to an FOI request requires more than just searching emails.
When conducting a search, you need to look in your office’s electronic recordkeeping systems on Shared Drives, SharePoint sites and other collaboration tools, and in your paper or electronic notebook, as well any paper files.
The FOIPPA Specialist is your point of contact and will provide support to you to ensure you have a clear understanding of the request and what is required of you in responding.
To conduct a thorough email search:
- Search all Outlook items, not just your Inbox
- Search every mailbox you have access to, not just your own mailbox
- Search deleted, sent and subfolders
- Use broad search terms
- Use your expertise and knowledge on the topic to find everything that may be relevant
- Search common acronyms and synonyms
Also search for individual emails you may have printed or filed elsewhere.
If you have .PST files or have preserved emails in .PDF format to the hard drive of your computer or a Shared Drive, search these files if you have reason to believe relevant records may be saved there.
A note about archived emails:
If you have archived email files saved in a recordkeeping system, you may need to search those files as well. This is important to remember, because a search through your email account will not capture these files, which could contain records responsive to a request. This also applies to individual emails you may have saved elsewhere, outside of your email application.
PST files
PST files contain batches of Outlook content including emails, calendar events, tasks, etc. Folders, inboxes or entire mailboxes can be exported from Outlook in this format. PST files are not recommended for preservation purposes because they handle poorly in LANs, are easily corruptible, can’t be searched in EDRMS environments, and can’t be scanned for viruses. Contact the IT department at servicedesk@bc-er.ca for assistance with searching PST files.
Summary
It is also important to remember, that even transitory records need to be included if you have not yet disposed of them when the FOI request is received. You are not permitted to dispose of transitory records if they’re responsive to an ongoing FOI request.
Proactive disclosure
Proactive disclosure is the disclosure of information without the need for an FOI request. The BCER has a robust system that supports the proactive disclosure of information and discloses many kinds of data and information outside of the FOI process. Information is routinely released by responding to requests for information informally, as often as possible. In addition, the BCER website contains technical, spatial, analytical and other types of data and reports which are updated regularly, and available to the public.
The B.C. Data Catalogue also provides the easiest access to government's public data holdings, as well as applications and web services. Thousands of the datasets discoverable in the catalogue are available under the Open Government License — British Columbia.
We encourage you to contact FOIIntake@bc-er.ca if you have any questions.