Mystery of How Newspaper Identified Boat Refugee

A complainant alleged that personal information about a "boat refugee" who was a wanted fugitive was disclosed by a federal institution to a National Post reporter. The OPC investigated and found that the information in question was publicly available on the INTERPOL website. Due to journalistic confidentiality, the OPC could not confirm how the reporter obtained the information, but found no evidence that any of the named federal institutions had disclosed it. The complaint was therefore not well-founded, though the OPC reminded departments of the sensitivity of refugee information.

• Whether personal information of a refugee was disclosed by a federal institution to a reporter
• The source of information published by the National Post
• The sensitivity of personal information of refugees