Statistical Reports on the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act

ANNUAL STATISTICAL REPORTS

These instructions are intended to assist in the preparation of the annual Statistical Reports on the operation of the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. 

The reports should conform to the following instructions. 

Timing

You are asked to prepare and submit your 2004-2005 annual statistical reports to the Treasury Board Secretariat by Friday, May 20, 2005. 

Content

The annual statistical reports are intended to provide up-to-date statistics on the operation of the legislation. They enable the government to monitor trends and to respond to enquiries from Members of Parliament, the public and the media. They also form the statistical portion of institutions' annual reports to Parliament. 

New Reporting Requirements for 2004-2005

Under the Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) Policy, which came into effect on May 2, 2002, Treasury Board Secretariat is to monitor compliance with the PIA Policy through a variety of means. Given the foregoing Policy requirements, institutions are asked to report the following information for the 2004-2005 time period: 

• The number of PIAs initiated.
• number of Preliminary Privacy Impact Assessments (PPIA) initated.
• number of PPIAs/PIAs forwarded to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC).
• the number of PIA summaries posted on institutional web sites.

This information should be submitted in a narrative form to Colette Dubois via e-mail at Dubois.Colette@tbs-sct.gc.ca 

New Reporting Requirements for 2005-2006 – Access to Information Act

Beginning on April 1, 2005, and from now on, institutions will be required to report on the following new elements:

Part III – Exemptions invoked

• S. Art. 13(1)(e)
• S. Art. 14, 14(a) and 14(b)

Part IV – Exclusions cited:

• S. Art. 69.1 

Modifications to Reports and Supporting Software

Work has been initiated to develop new reporting forms to capture this information for 2005-2006. In addition, discussions will be initiated with Privasoft about these new reporting requirements and potential modifications to their software. 

Considerations

The following are particular aspects that should be considered when preparing reports: 

• All fields should be completed using numerical data. 

• Statistics must be compiled consistently and according to the definitions attached as Appendix A. 

• Statistical categories must be mathematically reconciled and any discrepancies should be explained. 

• Statistics submitted to the Treasury Board Secretariat for the fiscal year should be identical to those appearing in the institution's annual reports to Parliament. 

Forms

Statistical reports should be completed using the forms TBS/SCT 350-62 "Report on the Access to Information Act" and TBS/SCT 350-63 "Report on the Privacy Act". 

These are available under "Access to Information and Privacy" on the Internet site at:

 http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/gos-sog/atip-aiprp/forms/list_e.asp 

Submission

Please submit your reports to Dubois.Colette@tbs-sct.gc.ca

Hard copies of the annual statistical reports may be sent to:

Colette Dubois
Information, Privacy and Security Policy Division
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat
2745 Iris Street 
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0R5 

Enquiries

Please direct any questions regarding these instructions to Nancy Olive of the Information, Privacy and Security Policy Division at (613) 954-3720 or by e-mail at Olive.Nancy@tbs-sct.gc.ca. 

Donald Lemieux

Acting Senior Director
Information, Privacy and Security Policy Division
Chief Information Officer Branch

Appendix A

Statistical Reports

The following is intended to provide guidance on the data that must be entered in forms TBS/SCT 350-62 "Report on the Access to Information Act" and TBS/SCT 350-63 "Report on the Privacy Act". 

Source (Access to Information)

Specify the number of requests received from each of the sources listed on the form. When it is not possible to identify the source, include the request under “Public”. The sum of these fields should be equal to the number of requests received shown in part I.

Part I - Requests under the Access to Information Act (ATIA) and the Privacy Act (PA) 

Only formal requests filed pursuant to section 6 of the ATIA and section 13 of the PA should be included in the statistical reports. 

A formal request meets the following requirements: 

•  It is in writing; was submitted using the "Access to Information Request Form" or the "Personal Information Request Form"; or refers to the Act. 

• It is made by an individual or corporation entitled to apply, as set out by section 4 of the ATIA, section 12 of the PA and relevant Extension Orders.  

• It adequately identifies the individual submitting a request under the Privacy Act. 

• It provides sufficient detail to enable an experienced employee of the institution with a reasonable effort to identify the record. 

• It has been addressed to or received by the official identified in Info Source as the contact person for the government institution. 

• It is accompanied by the application fee required by the Access to Information Act. (The government institution may waive the application fee.) 

Incomplete requests that are not clear or that are not accompanied by the application fee should not be included in the statistical and annual reports. Moreover, do not include requests received under subsection 8(2) of the PA in the statistical reports. 

Received during reporting period

This category includes formal, complete requests received during the reporting period (April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2005). 

Outstanding from previous period

These are requests that were still being processed at the end of the previous reporting period. 

Completed during reporting period

A request is completed when all actions for its processing have taken place and the file has been closed. In other words, the request is completed when:

• a response has been sent to the requester to advise of the disposition of the request - either a disclosure or denial of access has taken place, or the information requested could not be provided (because the records do not exist, the institution is unable to process, etc.); or
• the request has been transferred; or
• the request was abandoned. 

Where notification has been sent out that access is to be given but the applicant has not yet been given access to the information, the request should be reported under "Carried forward". 

Carried forward

Carried forward refers to requests that were not completed at the end of the reporting period, including cases where physical access has not yet been provided. 

Only completed requests should be included in the statistics included in the following parts II to X. 

Part II - Disposition of requests completed

Report the disposition of each request under only one of the following categories. If more than one category applies, explain the discrepancy. 

All disclosed

All of the information requested was disclosed to the applicant. 

Disclosed in part

Only a portion of the information requested was disclosed because the remainder was exempt and/or excluded. Cite the specific exemptions invoked in part III of the form and the specific exclusions in part IV, in accordance with the definitions listed below. 

Nothing disclosed (excluded)

There was no disclosure because all of the information requested qualified for exclusion under section 68 or section 69 of the ATIA or section 69 or section 70 of the PA. The specific exclusions are to be cited in part IV of the report.

Nothing disclosed (exempt)

There was no disclosure because all of the information requested qualified for exemption. 

Transferred

This refers to requests filed under the Access to Information Act that were transferred to another government institution with "greater interest". The receiving institution will account for the request under "Received during reporting period". 

Unable to process

This category includes requests that are not accounted for elsewhere, such as requests made under the wrong legislation, requests where there was insufficient information to locate any relevant information, requests for records that are not under the control of the institution, or requests for which no identifiable records exist. 

Abandoned by applicant

A request is considered abandoned when the applicant formally withdraws it or when the applicant does not respond to correspondence within thirty days. 

Treated informally

Requests are treated informally when it has been determined, through consultation with the applicant, that processing of a formal request can be discontinued in favour of providing the information on an unofficial basis, i.e. outside the Access to Information Act. A request treated in this manner is not considered to have been abandoned. 

Total

The number reported should be the same as the number reported in “Part I – Completed during reporting period” 

Part III - Exemptions invoked

For each request, indicate the exemptions invoked to deny access. For example, if five different exemptions were invoked to refuse the disclosure of records relevant to one request, report one exemption under each of the relevant provisions, for a total of five. If the same exemption was used several times for the same request, report it only once. 

Part IV - Exclusions cited

For each request, indicate the exclusions cited, not the number of times a particular exclusion is cited for each request. See the example provided in part III above. 

Part V - Completion time

Completion time is to be counted from the day following the receipt of a complete request by the institution until the day the processing of the request was completed. The sum of these fields should be equal to the number of completed requests reported in part I.

Note: The sum of the fields should equal the same number reported in “Part I – Completed during reporting period” 

Part VI - Extensions

Indicate the number of times an extension was sought during the reporting period, by number of days and the reason for the extension. 

Part VII - Translations

The fields are self-explanatory. 

Part VIII - Method of access

The sum of the fields should equal the sum of "All disclosed" and "Disclosed in part" in Part II. 

Copies given

This refers to the number of requests for which access was provided by giving copies of records to the applicants. Include only cases where copies were the sole method of access. Do not count the number of pages supplied to the applicant. 

Examination

Count the number of requests for which access was given by allowing the applicant an opportunity to view the record requested. Include only those cases where no copy was provided. 

Copies and examination

Include all cases where information was both examined and copied, in whole or in part. Do not double-count (i.e. do not duplicate information included in the two previous fields). 

Part IX - Fees (Access to Information)

The fields are self-explanatory. Fees are to be calculated in accordance with the Regulations. 

Part IX - Corrections and notation (Privacy)

The number of corrections requested should reflect the number of requests for correction completed during the reporting period. The sum of "corrections made" and "notation attached" should equal the number of corrections requested. Requests for correction that have not received a response should be counted in the next reporting period. 

Each requested correction requiring a separate decision should be counted. There may be more than one correction within a document (such as incorrect spelling of the last name and educational qualifications) or there may be more than one correction affecting more than one document (e.g. an incorrect birth date appearing in several documents). 

Part X - Costs

Account for all costs involved in administering the legislation by indicating the resources spent during the reporting period, including staff salary and other estimated operating and maintenance costs. Do not attempt to simply calculate the costs of processing individual requests. What should be indicated are the total expenditures associated with those activities that are directly related to the administration of the legislation, such as processing requests, training and consultations. Staff resources should be reported in person-years or a decimal thereof (1 PY = 220 working days; 1 working day = 7.5 hours). Include only those costs involved in processing the requests completed during the reporting period. Costs of carried forward cases are to be included in the next report. Attention should be paid to separating access and privacy costs and avoiding double counting.