Right to Know Week in Canada takes place on Sept 26-Sep 30, 2011 RTK Week was created to raise people’s awareness about their right of access to government information. It highlights the essential role freedom of information plays in democracy and good governance. This year marks the sixth year that Canadians have celebrated RTK Week, and there […]

In this issue: BC’s ‘Open Information, Open Data’ plan shows promise …but the other side of ‘Government 2.0’ requires radical changes to our “antiquated” privacy protections Coalition formed to battle online spying bills FIPA turns 20! Birthday party September 28 Commissioner Denham says BC Ferries-style FOI policy “frustrates the purposes of FIPPA” BC Ferries ‘loses’ […]

JOINT LETTER QUESTIONS WHY GOVERNMENT IS AVOIDING DEBATE ON INTERNET SURVEILLANCE LEGISLATION A new “Stop Online Spying” coalition of Canadian public interest organizations and academics released a joint letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper today, voicing grave concerns about pending omnibus legislation that would allow for warrantless online spying on Canadians (“Lawful Access” legislation). The […]

GOVERNMENT MOVES TO ROUTINELY RELEASE SOME INFORMATION, BUT LOTS OF RECORDS REMAIN BEHIND CLOSED DOORS With its new “Open Information – Open Data” policy, the BC government has taken a big step forward on how it releases information to the public. But according to the BC Freedom of information and Privacy Association, there is still […]

The BCCLA and BC FIPA have sent a joint letter to the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC regarding media reports that the office of the commissioner will be investigating ICBC’S proposed use of its photo database for the purposes of identifying suspects in the recent Stanley Cup riots. In our view, it is arguable […]

FIPA has created a website called “Health Information Privacy in British Columbia” to fill a serious lack of information available to the public about their health privacy rights as the province moves toward a universal system of government- controlled electronic health records. British Columbia has launched a multi-million dollar program to create an electronic health […]

More than 30.000 people and organizations have signed an online petition against the federal government’s plan to sneak in internet spy legislation as part of its omnibus crime bill. FIPA is a member of the STOP ONLINE SPYING campaign and encourages all its members and supporters to sign the petition which is available at http://www.stopspying.ca/ […]

SOME PROPOSALS HINDER PRIVACY RIGHTS By Ian Mulgrew Vancouver Sun June 7, 2011 The Conservative government’s omnibus “tough-on-crime” legislation should be redubbed “tough-on-civil-liberties” if it embraces all the last Parliament’s law-and-order leftovers. … Aside from concerns over the radical change to the country’s approach to crime-and-punishment, some of the proposals run roughshod over privacy rights […]

Canada Health Infoway’s plans for highly-centralized electronic health records (EHR) systems within each province containing patient records that can be shared nationwide may not be feasible, a chorus of experts says. That “shared record” model which Infoway has adopted was in large part discredited and discarded in the United Kingdom, note the critics, who say […]

Liberal Party of Canada’s response to BC FIPA, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, and Newspapers Canada’s question regarding their position on ATI reform. A Liberal government will:   • Post all Access to Information requests, responses, and response times online at accesstoinformation.gc.ca;   • Immediately restore the long-form census;   • Make as many government datasets […]

Jack Layton’s response on behalf of the NDP to FIPA, CTF, and Newspapers Canada question regarding the party’s position on access to information reform. New Democrats are committed to improve the Access to Information system through a variety of measures that include increasing the powers of the Information Commissioner, speeding up the processing time of […]

PLAN “LESS ABOUT WHAT GOVERNMENT IS DOING WITH ITS OWN DATA THAN WHAT IT’S DOING WITH CITIZENS’ DATA,” B.C. CIVIL LIBERTIES ASSOCIATION SAYS With the unwieldy title of “Citizens @ The Centre: B.C. Government 2.0 – A transformation and technology strategy for the B.C. Public Service,” the document starts out okay. Defining principles have phrases […]