The B.C. government is getting ready to contract out its computer nerve-centre to a U.S. company, says B.C.’s biggest public-sector union. EDS Advanced Solutions, a B.C. subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard-EDS, is negotiating with the province to operate the mainframe computer servers at the government’s Victoria facility. The plan concerns FIPA because the USA Patriot Act enables […]

MPs have been given a new blueprint to renovate the country’s antiquated access-to-information law. New Democrat MP Pat Martin has introduced a private member’s bill that includes reform measures Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised more than three years ago, but has yet to act on. The bill hit the floor on the eve of a […]

Congratulations! The B.C. government — the one that promised to be “the most open, accountable and democratic government in Canada” — has just granted your freedom of information request. You open the package of documents and find a notice that seems to say you can’t make the information public without the government’s permission. “Permission of […]

BC’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has issued a special report criticizing the provincial government for its failure to tackle the chronic problem of delay in responding to freedom of information requests. In his first annual report on FOI performance, “Timeliness of Government’s Access to Information Responses”, released on February 13, David Loukidelis describes what he […]

Vancouver – A non-partisan coalition, including FIPA, the BC Civil Liberties Association, and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, has come together to warn British Columbians that it is not just big spenders who are at risk under the new BC Election Act. The Election Act’s third party advertising restrictions have opened a nightmare of arbitrary enforcement, […]

A ruling handed down on January 13 by the Ontario Court of Appeal is “a landmark decision that upholds the principles of openness and transparency as applied to electronic records,” said Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian. The Court allowed appeals by the Commissioner and a Toronto Star reporter from a Divisional Court ruling […]

The Canadian Newspaper Association, Canadian Taxpayers Federation and FIPA are urging Prime Minister Harper to follow the lead of President Barack Obama and act immediately to end the access-to-information crisis in Canada. On his first day in office, President Obama issued new orders designed to improve the U.S. government’s openness and transparency. The first directive […]

Liberals try bureaucratic shuffle to meet criticism on information response By Vaughn Palmer Vancouver Sun (link to full column below) The B.C. Liberals are moving to centralize all incoming requests under the provincial information law, saying it is an attempt to address chronic complaints about government failure to respond in a timely fashion. The edict […]

The suspension of Parliament in the ongoing political crisis is not likely to interfere with a much-needed anti-spam bill tabled earlier this year. Bill S-202, the Anti-Spam Act, which received its second reading in early December before Parliament was prorogued, would crack down on spam by prohibiting the sending of commercial emails to Canadians without […]

Weekly privacy news briefs from around the world Privacy News Highlights – 7 Jan 2008 Privacy News Highlights – 21 Jan 2008 Privacy News Highlights – 31 Jan 2008 Privacy News Highlights – 14 Feb 2008 Privacy News Highlights – 28 Feb 2008 Privacy News Highlights – 20 Mar 2008 Privacy News Highlights – 31 […]

By Janice Tibbets Vancouver Sun December 9, 2008 Should access to government information be elevated to a constitutional right? The Supreme Court of Canada, in a massive legal challenge Thursday that is drawing more than a dozen interveners, will consider whether access-to-information laws, which permit the public to see documents that the state seeks to […]

EDITORIAL THE TIMES COLONIST B.C. Children’s Minister Tom Christensen says the government’s attempt to evade freedom-of-information laws and conceal damaging information about inadequate support for children who have been sexually abused was an understandable mistake. That is rubbish. The censorship, as in so many similar cases, was a violation of the government’s claimed commitment to […]