Personal e-mails stored on a government computer are not subject to freedom of information legislation, according to an Ontario court ruling.
The issue has “broad significance for thousands of individuals across the province,” said a three-judge panel of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
“It is not reasonable for e-mails belonging to a private individual to be subject to access by members of the public merely because they are sent or received on a government owned e-mail server,” Madam Justice Anne Molloy wrote for the panel.
The case involved Rick O’Connor, a solicitor for the City of Ottawa, who used his work e-mail account for correspondence related to his volunteer position with the Children’s Aid Society. In 2007, Ottawa resident John Dunn asked the city to provide access to Mr. O’Connor’s CAS e-mails under the access to information act.
While freedom of information laws allow citizens to request government documents to help enhance democracy, the judges ruled the legislation does not cover public servants’ private messages – even if they are stored on government computers.
The panel also determined that Mr. O’Connor’s Children’s Aid Society e-mails, which were unrelated to city business and kept in a separate folder, were not in the municipality’s control or custody.
“Quite simply, these documents have nothing to do with municipal government and are not remotely connected to anything the legislation was intended to encompass,” the ruling says.
The decision, released last week, overturns a 2009 ruling by an Information and Privacy Commissioner adjudicator, which ordered the city to release the documents.
The Children’s Aid Society falls outside freedom of information legislation.
