User:Joy.moskovic/30day

Background

The Government committed to making it easier for Canadians to access government information, including their personal information held by government:

“	Transparency includes providing Canadians with timely access to their own personal information held by government. To make it easier for Canadians to access government information, including their personal information, the Government proposes to create a simple, central website where Canadians can submit requests to any government institution. This will be backed up with a 30‑day guarantee for personal information requests: should a request take longer than 30 days to fulfill, the Government will provide a written explanation for the delay to the requester and to the Privacy Commissioner.	”
—Budget 2016

Current Extension Provisions

The Privacy Act currently requires that government institutions provide a response to a request for personal information within 30 days or inform the requester that an extension is required. The Act allows an institution to extend the timeline to respond to a request for up to 30 additional days if:

• Meeting the original timeline would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the government institution (s 15(a)(i));
• Consultations are necessary to comply with the request that cannot reasonably be completed within the original 30-day time limit (s 15(a)(ii)); or
• Additional time is necessary for translation or conversion of the personal information into an alternative format (s 15(b)).

Institutions are also required to inform the requester in the notification of the extension of their right to complain to the Privacy Commissioner about the extension.

Currently, institutions do not need to provide an explanation for the delay nor are they required to notify the Privacy Commissioner of the extension. As a result, new policy requirements are proposed, to require a written explanation to be included in the notification to the requester. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner would be informed of the reasons for delays through institutions’ annual reports.

Proposed new requirements

Proposed amendments to the Directive on Privacy Requests and Correction of Personal Information would require institutions to:

• inform the requester that an extension to the 30-day time limit is needed, and to provide an explanation of the reason for the delay; and,
• to publicly report on the number of, and reasons for, extensions in their Annual Report on the Administration of the Privacy Act.

TBS has created Model Written Explanations to support institutions with the implementation of the 30-Day Response and Written Explanation Guarantee.

Next Steps

The new instruments are expected to be published on July 1, 2018 and are proposed to take effect on October 1, 2018.

Institutions are encouraged to change their business practices to begin providing written explanations for extensions to the requester in advance of October 1, 2018.

Data relating to written explanations will be collected beginning in October 2018. Guidance and interim reporting tools will be made available to institutions prior to October 1, 2018.

The proposed policy and the model explanations do not change the circumstances set out in section 15 of the Privacy Act in which an institution can take an extension.

Meetings, Workshops and Presentations

ATIP Community Meeting – June 19, 2018 • 30-Day Response or Written Explanation Guarantee Presentation (insert hyperlink when available)

Toolbox

30-Day Response or Written Explanation Guarantee DRAFT Policy Updates

• UPDATED Policy On Privacy Protection (insert hyperlink when available)
• UPDATED Directive on Privacy Requests and Correction of Personal Information (insert hyperlink when available)

Implementation Tools

• Model Written Explanations (insert hyperlink when available)
• Guide for the 2017-2018 Statistical Reporting - Privacy Act (insert hyperlink when available)
• Implementation 30-Day Checklist (insert hyperlink when available)