5823-04210 — Canada Border Services Agency

The complainant alleged that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) failed to conduct a reasonable search for Microsoft Teams messages related to ArriveCAN. The CBSA initially informed the complainant that no such records existed, citing a 30-day retention period for MS Teams messages. However, the OIC's investigation revealed that an administrative error prevented the request from being promptly entered into CBSA's case management system, causing a significant delay in processing. This delay meant that by the time the request was actioned, the MS Teams messages would have been automatically deleted. Despite this, CBSA policy required business-related information from MS Teams to be saved to corporate repositories. During the investigation, CBSA searched these repositories and located one responsive record, which was subsequently provided to the complainant. The Commissioner found that the CBSA did not conduct a reasonable search initially due to the processing delays and failure to task program areas, but acknowledged that a reasonable search was eventually completed during the investigation.