Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, CHAPTER 5, Third Party Information. Updated 9 March 2023. 93 the Commissioner found that the extension was not authorized as Highways did not provide any arguments regarding third parties or that it required time to notify them. As well, Highways did not indicate in its initial response to the Commissioner and the applicant that any third parties were even involved. The Commissioner recommended that within 15 days of the issuance of the Review Report, Highways complete processing of the applicant’s three access to information requests, provide properly executed section 7 responses and refund the deposits already paid by the applicant. Subsection 34(4) Notice to third party 34(4) Where, in the opinion of the head, it is not reasonable to provide a notice to a third party pursuant to subsection (1), the head may dispense with the giving of notice. To receive notice, the third party must be able to be located with reasonable effort by the government institution. A reasonable effort is the level of effort you would expect of any fair, sensible person. What is reasonable depends on the information at issue and related circumstances.205 If the third party cannot reasonably be located, the government institution may dispense with giving notice pursuant to subsection 34(4) of FOIP. A government institution is expected to use only its own records and publicly available resources to locate an address for a third party.206 If there is any doubt as to the third party’s contact information, the government institution may need to adapt its notification process to ensure there is no breach of privacy or confidentiality during the notification process.207 205 See SK OIPC resource, Guide to FOIP, Chapter 3: Access to Records, under heading “Search for Records” – definition for a “reasonable search” has been relied upon and modified for what is considered reasonable effort for locating a third party. A “reasonable search” was defined in SK OIPC Review Reports F-2008-001 at [38] and F-2012-002 at [26]. 206 Service Alberta, FOIP Guidelines and Practices: 2009 Edition, Chapter 5: Third Party Notice at pp. 214 to 215. 207 Service Alberta, FOIP Guidelines and Practices: 2009 Edition, Chapter 5: Third Party Notice at p. 215.
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