Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Guide to LA FOIP, Chapter3, Access to Records. Updated 5 May 2023. 38 Sufficient particularity means stating precisely what is being sought. Applicants should provide sufficient detail to enable an experienced employee of the local authority, with reasonable effort, to identify the records sought.65 Specific and precise access requests enable local authorities to respond more quickly and cost-effectively. This avoids the delay often entailed when all-encompassing or imprecise access requests are made. Applicants, therefore, have an incentive to cooperate with local authorities by, whenever reasonably possible, making clear, specific, and not unnecessarily broad access requests.66 Where the head cannot identify a record because of a vague request, the applicant will be asked to provide more detail. However, this provision is not intended to require applicants to “narrow” their requests. See below for more on clarifying versus narrowing. If an applicant wishes to maintain a broad request, it is an applicant’s right to do so. However, applicants should be aware that a broad access request may involve fees. Narrowing a request, therefore, may result in a smaller fee. For more on fees, see Section 9: Fee, later in this Chapter. Local authorities should adopt a liberal interpretation of a request, in order to best serve the purpose and spirit of LA FOIP. Generally, ambiguity in the request should be resolved in the applicant’s favour. To be considered responsive to the request, records must “reasonably relate” to the request.67 Clarifying vs Narrowing Clarifying versus narrowing mean very different things. The Commissioner has addressed this in more than one Report where it was found that a government institution or local authority, relying on subsections 6(1)(b) or 6(3) of LA FOIP or The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, had attempted to force applicants to narrow a request which is not an appropriate application of these subsections. 65 See SK OIPC Disregard Decision 040-2022, 041-2022, 042-2022 at [49] and [50]. See also subsection 5(1)(a) of British Columbia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, subsection 24(1)(b) of Ontario’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, and subsection 6(1)(b) of Nova Scotia’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. 66 Office of the British Columbia Information and Privacy Commissioner (BC IPC) Order 328-1999 at p. 3. 67 ON IPC Order PO-3492 at [15]. See also SK OIPC Review Report 016-2014 at [20] to [27].
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTgwMjYzOA==