Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to FOIP, Chapter 6, Protection of Privacy. Updated 27 February 2023. 77 personal capacity. However, if the employee states “Smith is not a good employee”, the opinion is about another individual and subsection 24(1)(h) of FOIP would apply. IPC Findings In Review Report F-2006-001, the Commissioner found that information in a record showing the opinion or comments of a fire fighter who completed a report about a particular file intended to be furnished to the Office of the Fire Commissioner would be “work product” information and therefore not personal information of the public sector employee. In Review Report LA-2013-001, the Commissioner found that the views, opinions and comments made by employees who were witnesses in a harassment investigation were not the personal information of the employees pursuant to subsection 23(2)(b) of The Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (LA FOIP). The witnesses in question were all employees of the then Regina Qu’Appelle Regional Health Authority (RQRHA) and their statements related to things they did or said in the course of their employment. Further, the Commissioner found that opinions or views the employees of RQRHA gave in the course of their employment that related to or were about the applicant was the personal information of the applicant and must be released to the applicant. In Review Report LA-2013-003, the Commissioner found that an email written by an employee of the then Saskatoon Regional Health Authority describing the functions of the area the employee worked and the impact of a location change on the functions in the employee’s work area was not the personal information of the employee. The views or opinions were provided in the employee’s professional capacity. In addition, the contents of a Consensus Statement appeared to be the collective opinion or view of a department given in the course of employment by several employees and did not constitute personal information. In other words, the employees who signed the Consensus Statement appeared to be speaking on behalf of its department, not on behalf of themselves personally. However, some employees provided views and opinions that were outside of the employee’s duties. For example, views or opinions that dealt with matters outside of the employee’s duties, were sent from a personal email address, contained personal contact information and the views or opinions did not represent the official views of the employer. These types of views or opinions were found to be personal information. In Review Report LA-2014-002, the then Saskatoon Regional Health Authority severed portions of a letter that described the actions of two employees and why. The Commissioner found that the actions described were in the work context and did not constitute personal
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