ORDER P-1186
Appeal P-9500742
Ministry of Finance
NATURE OF THE APPEAL:
The Ministry of Finance (the Ministry) received a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act). The requester sought access to all records related to his assessment roll number for properties at three identified locations for the years 1978-1995.
The Ministry located the responsive records and issued a decision granting access to them in their entirety for a fee of $39. The requester (now the appellant) appealed the Ministry’s decision to charge a fee on the basis that his request was for personal information.
During mediation of the appeal, the Ministry reconsidered its decision and reclassified certain of the responsive records as constituting the personal information of the appellant. The Ministry disclosed these records to the appellant at no charge. The revised fee for access to the remaining records was $11.50, consisting of $4 for reproduction costs and $7.50 for the preparation of the record.
The remaining records may be described as follows:
Assessment record (2 pages)
Description of property and structure (5 pages)
Diagram of structure (2 pages)
Assessment roll (1 page)
Handwritten notes (6 pages)
Memorandum (2 pages)
Logs (2 pages)
The appellant also advised that the Ministry had not located all the records which he believes are responsive to his request. The appellant maintains that the following three records should exist:
A document containing legal advice pertaining to a 25% obsolescence allowance to offset a 1,500 square foot excess measurement of the appellant’s property;
A legal brief prepared in response to a letter dated January 23, 1995; and
An affidavit dated on or about May 14, 1993 related to the fact that the appellant filed no supplementary assessment appeal.
This office sent a Notice of Inquiry to the Ministry and the appellant. Representations were received from the Ministry only.
In its representations, the Ministry advised that it had located an additional record, a memorandum dated February 27, 1995 from a Ministry solicitor to the Associate Deputy Minister concerning a response to a complaint filed by the appellant. The appellant agreed that this document constitutes the second record listed above which he believes should exist. Accordingly, this item is no longer at issue in the context of the Ministry’s search for responsive records.
The Ministry sent the appellant a decision denying access to the February 17, 1995 memorandum on the basis of the exemption in section 19 of the Act (solicitor-client privilege). The appellant advised this office that he was disputing this decision and wished to have this matter incorporated into his current appeal. The Ministry had provided submissions on the application of section 19 to this record in its submissions. The appellant advised that he would not be submitting any representations on this issue.
Because the memorandum appeared to contain the personal information of the appellant, the Ministry was requested to consider whether the exemption in section 49(a) might apply. This exemption provides an institution with the discretion to deny access to an individual’s own personal information in instances where certain exemptions, including section 19, would otherwise apply to that information. The Ministry provided supplementary representations on the application of section 49(a) to the memorandum.
To summarize, the issues I will address in this order are: (i) whether the Ministry is entitled to charge fees for access to the remaining records and, if so, whether the calculation was reasonable; (ii) whether section 49(a) applies to exempt the February 27, 1995 memorandum from disclosure; and (iii) whether the Ministry’s search to locate the responsive records was reasonable.
DISCUSSION:
FEES AND PERSONAL INFORMATION
This appeal was filed prior to the legislative amendments concerning the charging of photocopying fees for access to one’s own personal information. Accordingly, it is to be decided on the basis of the legislation in effect at that time. Section 57(1) of the Act set out the types of fees which may be charged for access to records under the Act. Section 57(2) created an exception to the Act’s fee provisions. It stated as follows:
Despite subsection (1), a head shall not require an individual to pay a fee for access to his or her own personal information.
In order to decide whether the Ministry can charge for access to the records in this case, I must first determine whether the request was for personal information and whether, in fact, the records at issue contain the appellant’s personal information. I will first consider the wording of the request which I will quote below:
I wish to submit this F.O.I. request for all personal information of mine, general records containing personal information of mine and all general records related to the above assessment roll number ....
This request may be characterized as seeking access to three groups of documents: those constituting the personal information of the appellant, general records containing his personal information and general records relating to the assessment roll number. The issue is into which category the records at issue fall.
Under section 2(1) of the Act, “personal information” is defined, in part, to mean recorded information about an identifiable individual, including any identifying number assigned to the individual and the individual’s name where it appears with other personal information relating to the individual or where the disclosure of the name would reveal other personal information about the individual (emphasis added).
The Ministry submits that the records were located in the assessment files of particular municipal addresses and all contain information about the appellant’s property, as well as about other properties used as comparables in the assessment appeals filed by the appellant. Therefore, the position of the Ministry is that the records contain information about property, rather than constituting personal information.
In this regard, the Ministry refers to Order 23, a decision of former Commissioner Sidney B. Linden in which he considered the issue of whether assessment information which contains the name of the assessed individual is personal information. In that order he determined that information concerning the municipal location of a property and its estimated market value was information about a property and not about an identifiable individual. His rationale for this determination was based on the following considerations:
(i) the information related to properties and not to an individual;
(ii) a property owner might not reside at the property so that the information might not be about an individual’s address;
(iii) the property owner might not be an individual; and
(iv) the municipal address is clearly visible to the public.
I agree with this analysis. Applying it to the records in this appeal, I find that, with one exception, the Ministry’s characterization of the records as containing information about property, as opposed to personal information, is correct. The majority of the records are about the assessment of the appellant’s property and the Ministry comparables. Thus, they are responsive to that part of the request dealing with access to general records relating to the assessment roll number.
The one exception is