Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to LA FOIP, Chapter3, Access to Records. Updated 5 May 2023. 23 interpreting the language of the Act as not applying , interfere with a citizen’s right to fully participate in democracy? There have been a number of cases where the Commissioner has determined that the personal records of employees were not in the possession or control of a government institution or local authority (see IPC Findings at the end of this section). In each case, the starting point was for the government institution or local authority to successfully demonstrate for the Commissioner that the records were indeed the personal records of the employee. Second, the government institution or local authority presented its case on why it did not have possession or control of the records. For best practices for how to manage personal emails in local authority email accounts, see IPC resource, Best Practices for the Management of Non-Work Related Personal Emails in Work-Issued Email Accounts. Conflict of Interest An employee with personal or special interest in whether records are disclosed should not be the person who decides the issue of disclosure when the records on held in the employee’s personal email account.35 When an employee is asked to search their own records to identify and provide copies of responsive records which they may not be reflected in the best light, there is an inherent conflict of interest and very human urge to expunge or attempt to hide embarrassing records. In all cases where there is a real or apparent conflict of interest in having an employee search their own records and supply responsive records, the searches should be conducted by the LA FOIP or Access Coordinator or Privacy Officer.36 When determining whether there is a conflict of interest in having the employee search their own personal accounts, consider the following: (a) Does the decision-maker (or employee) have a personal or special interest in the records. 35 ON IPC Order MO-2867 at [22]. See also SK OIPC Review Report 023-2020, 027-2020, Part I, at [37]. 36 Office of the Nunavut Information and Privacy Commissioner (NU IPC) Review Report 16-102 at [4] and [5].
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