Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Best Practices for Mayors, Reeves, Councillors and School Board Members. Effective 27 Dec. 2017. Updated 02 Oct. 2023. 5 If an Elected Official is no longer running for office, the Elected Official may wish to transfer or share certain open files related to unresolved issues or cases where the constituent or organization is now represented by another Elected Official. If there are records of a sensitive nature or containing personal information, the Elected Official should get written consent from the individual before transferring the records. In assessing what is the appropriate retention period and whether it is time to dispose of personal information, an Elected Official should consider the following points: • Reviewing the purpose for having collected the personal information in the first place is generally helpful in assessing how long certain personal information should be retained. • If personal information was used to make a decision about an individual, it should be retained for the legally required period of time – or other reasonable amount of time in the absence of legislative requirements – to allow the individual to access that information in order to understand, and possibly challenge, the basis for the decision (i.e., employment records that hold personal information). Elected Officials need to make informed choices about how long to keep personal information and when and how to safely dispose of it. The capacity and desirability to retain massive amounts of personal information indefinitely increases the risks and consequences of a potential privacy breach. If retaining personal information would result in a prejudice for the concerned individual or increase the risk and exposure of potential privacy breaches, the Elected Official should consider safely disposing of it. Secure disposal If an Elected Official has personal information in his or her control, he or she cannot simply throw it away in the trash. The Elected Official must find a way to securely dispose of it. In instances where an Elected Official is planning a move, or is closing his/her doors, personal information should be securely transferred or disposed of. There are several commonly accepted ways for Elected Official’s to properly dispose of personal information depending on the form in which it is being stored. The goal is to irreversibly destroy the media or delete the information which contains personal information so that this information cannot be reconstructed or recovered in any way.
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