When requesting your personal information from a public body, one of the first things you should do is verify that the public body has the personal information you seek. Accessing information, even if it is your own, can sometimes be a long drawn-out process so it is important to verify they have it before starting […]

Private sector organizations can collect your personal information for legitimate and reasonable purposes; however, they must follow the personal information and privacy rules set out in the Personal Information Protection Act, which are based on the ten principles of privacy protection.  For example, the organization should identify the purpose for collecting personal information, including how […]

Freedom of information (FOI) requests to BC public bodies can provide you information about either:   government activities or programs, or  personal information from government records about yourself or on behalf of someone else.  There is no limit to how much information you request, but the larger the size of the request, the more resources it […]

Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests can be used to access your personal information or government records from a federal public body. Federal public bodies have 30 days to respond to a formal ATIP request, but this time limit can be extended for up to another 30 days. The two reasons a request can […]

Public bodies, as per the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), may collect personal information only if it is expressly authorized under an Act, collected for the purposes of law enforcement, collected at a public event, or it is necessary to be collected.   Generally, public bodies can only use your personal information […]