Canadian privacy & access decisions

An institution sought the Information Commissioner's approval to decline to act on three access requests under subsection 6.1(1) of the Access to Information Act, arguing they were made in bad faith and constituted an abuse of the right of access. The requests sought all communications containing specific vulgar words over a three-year period. The institution claimed it had met its duty to assist the requester and that processing these requests would be unduly burdensome, requiring 4,068 employees to manually search for keywords and yielding thousands of non-relevant records, thereby hindering its ability to process other legitimate requests. The Commissioner found that the institution had fulfilled its duty to assist and that the requests, as framed, were an abuse of the right of access due to their breadth, the volume of requests submitted by the requester in a short timeframe, and the significant burden they would place on the institution, which would negatively impact other requesters. Consequently, the Commissioner granted the institution's application to decline to act on the requests.

• Whether the institution met its duty to assist the requester under s.4(2.1) ATIA
• Whether the access requests were an abuse of the right to make a request under s.6.1(1) ATIA
• Whether the requests were vexatious under s.6.1(1) ATIA
• Whether the requests were made in bad faith under s.6.1(1) ATIA

The complainant alleged that National Defence (DND) failed to conduct reasonable searches for records related to specific contracts under the Access to Information Act. The OIC investigation found that DND had not attempted to retrieve records from a third-party contractor, despite being entitled to them under the contract, nor had it searched paper records or a cloud-based platform. While DND initially argued the records were not under its control, it later conceded this point. As a result of the OIC's investigation, DND contacted the contractor and retrieved additional documents from the cloud platform. The Information Commissioner concluded that DND's initial searches were not reasonable. The complaints were found to be well founded, and DND was ordered to process the newly located records and provide new responses to the complainant.

• Whether National Defence conducted reasonable searches for records related to contracts W6369-21-X008 and W6369-19-X033/A
• Whether records held by a third-party contractor, which National Defence was entitled to obtain, were under the control of National Defence
• Whether National Defence adequately searched paper records
• Whether National Defence adequately searched cloud-based platforms