Freedom of information is not a game © 2026 by Policy Options: Spencer Izen is republished under license CC BY-ND 4.0 At a recent meeting of Canadian freedom of information (FOI) researchers and advocates, the series of changes to provincial access legislation over the past year was called a race to the bottom. Last fall, […]

Victoria May 7, 2026 –  The wholesale violation of the privacy rights of millions of members of the Alberta electorate is, in part, a consequence of deliberate decisions made by government to exclude political parties from meaningful privacy laws.  This issue is not confined to Alberta, and while the actors at the centre of the egregious and harmful data breach are […]

One of the goals behind Access & Privacy Online has always been practical: to surface significant access to information and privacy stories as they unfold. The podcast was designed as a monitoring and learning tool, helping listeners track developments across Canada and internationally, and understand how those stories connect to broader questions of accountability, surveillance, […]

In this Commentary, BC Information and Privacy Commissioner Michael Harvey returns to Access and Privacy Online to speak with FIPA President Mike Larsen, Executive Director Jason Woywada, and producer Patrick Farnsworth.   Commissioner Harvey addresses several key subjects, including the BC government’s latest report on the Freedom of Information and Privacy Act and concerns that people are losing faith in the […]

Canada’s federal C-2 Strong Borders Act is a sweeping and controversial bill that is currently moving through Parliament. The bill includes ‘lawful access’ provisions, unrelated to borders, that expand state powers to access personal information held by electronic service providers. This is not the first time that lawful access powers have been proposed, and privacy […]

In this Commentary, we discuss Bill C-4, titled An Act respecting certain affordability measures for Canadians and another measure. That “other measure” is a series of amendments to the Canada Election Act creating serious impacts on people and their personal information. FIPA is conducting its first joint podcast with Michael Geist and The Law Bytes Podcast.  Join me, FIPA Executive Director […]