Office of the Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner. Privacy Protective Survey Guidance. 14 March 2024. 5 sources to provide insights into individuals. Depending on the details of the insights, these profiles may qualify as personal information. Coded Data An alternative is to replace all personally identifiable data in the survey with a special code. The survey data with the special code can be retained separately from the personal information. Access to the personal information through the special code should be limited to individuals with a need to know for specific, defined purposes. Survey data with this type of coding still qualifies as personal information; therefore, there is a need to comply with FOIP and LA FOIP. However, the benefit of using coded survey responses is that they limit the number of individuals who have access to the personal information. The challenge with ensuring that respondents are not identifiable is illustrated by a privacy investigation conducted by the ON IPC, Investigation Report MC10-5. In that case, the ON IPC investigated a complaint about a paper-based survey of students conducted by an Ontario School Board. The ON IPC found that the unique survey number assigned to each paper survey linked to an identifiable student number that was maintained by the Board. Because the survey data could be linked to identifiable information, the ON IPC found that there was a reasonable expectation the individuals could be identified. Therefore, they found that the information collected through the survey qualified as personal information under Ontario’s Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. More recently, in our office’s Investigation Report 211-2019; et al, Commissioner Kruzeniski found that a survey of teachers about their students that collected the students’ initials, the name of the teacher, the grade and the school, created a “unique profile” of the students that rendered them identifiable. The Commissioner found that this information qualified as the students’ personal information subject to LA FOIP. Examine the data involved in your survey at every stage of the lifecycle to determine if it is sufficiently de-identified, truly anonymous, properly coded and/or qualifies as personal information.
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