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 […]

The Vancouver police board will review the department’s policy of releasing information requested under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act simultaneously to both the requester and the public, after being told by FOI advocates it is not adhering to the spirit of the law. On Wednesday Vincent Gogolek, the executive director of […]

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 law of diminishing returns is operating at full throttle at the BC Ferries Corporation. When it comes to FOI requests, it seems the more ferry officials look for controversial documents, the fewer they find. That would be one explanation for why BC Ferries originally responded to an FOI request from the BC Freedom of […]

BC FIPA has sent a submission the the Vancouver Police Board regarding the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) policy of simultaneous disclosure of responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests. BC FIPA notes that the BC Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner concluded that this practice violates the fundamental purpose of the Freedom of Information […]

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 […]

FOI WATCHDOG SAYS WRIST SLAP OPENS THE DOOR TO ABUSE BC’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has found BC Ferries’ FOI policy operates in a way that ‘frustrates the purposes of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act’, but has declined to do anything concrete about it. After being put back under the Act […]

TIME TO STOP LITIGATING AND START POSTING ROUTINELY, SAYS FIPA FIPA has won another important victory in forcing the provincial government to release contracts it makes with the private sector. In a decision handed down yesterday, the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner ordered the government to hand over most of the remaining parts […]

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 […]