INTERIM ORDER P-1533
Appeal P-9700303
Ministry of the Attorney General
NATURE OF THE APPEAL:
The Ministry of the Attorney General (the Ministry) received a request under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (the Act). The request was for access to a list of the names and addresses of those persons or organizations who had more than the sum of $10,000 on deposit with the Suitors Suspense Account at the Office of the Accountant of the Supreme Court of Ontario (now known as the Ontario Court (General Division)) in 1989 when these funds were transferred to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (the CRF). The Ministry provided the appellant with a fee estimate of $4,140 for retrieving this information and indicated that the list to be prepared would contain only the names of the accounts which were transferred to the CRF but not the addresses or the specific amounts. The appellant agreed with these conditions and paid the requested fee deposit of $2,070 to the Ministry.
The appellant indicated that he also required the dates that the payments were made to the office of the Accountant of the Supreme Court of Ontario. The Ministry indicated that this search would require a fee of between $360 and $1,830. The appellant paid the requested fee deposit of $180. After deciding not to grant access to the dates of the payments, the Ministry deducted the amount of the second fee deposit from the balance of $2,070 still outstanding, leaving a total due of $1,890. The appellant paid this amount and received access to the list of accounts which he had requested.
The Ministry originally advised the appellant that he would be granted access to the entire list of accounts, regardless of their value, which had been transferred to the CRF in 1989. This office has confirmed with the appellant that the record which he has received contains only the names of the accounts valued at more than $10,000, as he had originally requested. The Ministry incorrectly advised him earlier that the list included the names of all accounts which were transferred to the CRF in 1989.
Access to the date of each deposit to the Accountant of the Supreme Court of Ontario was denied by the Ministry, which claimed the application of section 21(1) of the Act (invasion of privacy) for this information.
The appellant appealed the Ministry’s decision to deny access to the date in which each deposit had been made. In addition, the appellant maintained that the record which was provided to him, listing 46 accounts, was incomplete and insufficiently detailed as it did not contain both the first and last names of those individuals who are listed. In addition, the appellant appealed the quantum of the fees which he was required to pay in order to gain access to the information which was disclosed to him.
Accordingly, the record at issue in this appeal consists of a two-page list of accounts valued at over $10,000 which had been transferred from the Accountant of the Supreme Court of Ontario in 1989 and includes the account number, the account name (listed by the style of cause of the proceeding or the name of the estate), the amount transferred, the name of the Solicitor of record, the date the funds were paid into court, the beneficiary (where known) and the source from which the funds were received (such as a law firm or a local office of the County or District Court). The appellant has been provided with the name of each account and this information is not, accordingly, at issue in the appeal. The only information contained in the record which is at issue is the date that each account was originally paid into court, prior to its transfer to the CRF in 1989.
During the mediation of the appeal, the Ministry agreed to provide the appellant with all of the undisclosed information with respect to one account which pertained to a payment into court made more than 30 years ago on behalf of an estate.
PRELIMINARY ISSUE:
ADEQUACY OF THE INFORMATION DISCLOSED
As noted above, the appellant has raised concerns with respect to the lack of detail in the list of accounts which was provided to him. The Ministry indicates that these accounts were listed by the style of cause of the action or the name of the estate which gave rise to the payment into court. The files were maintained in this manner so as to identify the source from which the funds were received by the Accountant of the Supreme Court of Ontario. Based on the information provided to me, I am satisfied that the account list which was provided to the appellant adequately describes the source of each payment to the Accountant and is not lacking in detail, as is alleged by the appellant.
DISCUSSION:
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Under section 2(1) of the Act, personal information is defined, in part, to mean recorded information about an identifiable individual. As noted above, the only information at issue in this appeal is the date when each of the accounts which are the subject of the request was paid into court. This information is listed along with the style of cause of the action or the name of the estate to which it relates. As noted above, this information has been disclosed to the appellant.
The Ministry submits that the date of payment is the personal information of an identifiable individual and that it should not be disclosed as to do so would result in an unjustified invasion of that individual’s personal privacy under section 21(1). The Ministry relies upon my finding in Order P-1187 that the dates of death which are contained in a record constitute the personal information of these deceased individuals. It argues that the date a payment was made into court on behalf of an estate is, by analogy, also the personal information of the deceased.
I cannot agree with this proposition. The payments into court relate to various causes of action, some of which involve only corporations, as well as payments made on behalf of estates. In my view, the date such a payment was made is not information which is “about” an identifiable individual so as to be characterized as constituting that person’s personal information. Because the information does not qualify as the personal information of an identifiable individual, I find that section 21(1) has no application to it. As no other mandatory exemptions apply to this information, it ought to be disclosed to the appellant.
FEE ESTIMATE
The appellant also disputes the amount of the fee which he was charged for obtaining access to the requested information. The charging of fees is authorized by section 57(1) of the Act, which
states:
A head shall require the person who makes a request for access to a record to pay fees in the amounts prescribed by the regulations for,
(a) the costs of every hour of manual search required to locate a record;
(b) the costs of preparing the record for disclosure;
(c) computer and other costs incurred in locating, retrieving, processing and copying a record;
(d) shipping costs; and
(e) any other costs incurred in responding to a request for access to a record.
Section 6 of Regulation 460 also deals with fees. It states, in part, as follows:
The following are the fees that shall be charged for the purposes of subsection 57(1) of the Act for access to a record:
For photocopies and computer printouts, 20 cents per page.
For manually searching a record, $7