Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act
Ontario, Chapter F.31
CONTENTS
- Purposes
- 1.
The purposes of this Act are,
- (a)
to provide a right of access to information
under the control of institutions in accordance
with the principles that,
- (i)
information should be available to the public,
- (ii)
necessary exemptions from the right of
access should be limited and specific, and
- (iii)
decisions on the disclosure of government
information should be reviewed
independently of government; and
- (b) to protect the privacy of individuals with
respect to personal information about themselves
held by institutions and to provide individuals
with a right of access to that information.
[R.S.O. 1990, c.F.31, s.1.]
- Definitions
- 2. (1)
In this Act,
-
"head", in respect of an institution, means,
-
- (a)
in the case of a ministry, the minister of the
Crown who presides over the ministry, and
- (b)
in the case of any other institution, the person
designated as head of that institution in the
regulations;
("personne responsable")
-
"Information and Privacy Commissioner" and "Commissioner"
- mean the Commissioner appointed under
subsection 4(1)
;
("commissaire à l'information et à
la protection de la vie privée", "commissaire")
-
"institution" means,
- (a)
a ministry of the Government of Ontario, and
- (b)
any agency, board, commission, corporation or
other body designated as an institution in the
regulations; ("institution")
-
"law enforcement" means,
- (a)
policing,
- (b)
investigations or inspections that lead or could
lead to proceedings in a court or tribunal if a
penalty or sanction could be imposed in those
proceedings, and
- (c)
the conduct of proceedings referred to in clause (b);
("ex\eacute;cution de la loi")
-
"personal information"
-
means recorded information about an
identifiable individual, including,
- (a)
information relating to the race, national or
ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex,
sexual orientation or marital or family status
of the individual,
- (b)
information relating to the education or the
medical, psychiatric, psychological, criminal or
employment history of the individual or
information relating to financial transactions
in which the individual has been involved,
- (c)
any identifying number, symbol or other
particular assigned to the individual,
- (d)
the address, telephone number, fingerprints or
blood type of the individual,
- (e)
the personal opinions or views of the individual
except where they relate to another individual,
- (f)
correspondence sent to an institution by the
individual that is implicitly or explicitly of a
private or confidential nature, and replies to
that correspondence that would reveal the
contents of the original correspondence,
- (g)
the views or opinions of another individual
about the individual, and
- (h)
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;
("renseignements personnels")
-
"personal information bank"
-
means a collection of personal
information that is organized and capable of being retrieved
using an individual's name or an identifying number or
particular assigned to the individual;
("banque de renseignements personnels")
-
"record"
-
means any record of information however recorded,
whether in printed form, on film, by electronic means or
otherwise, and includes,
- (a)
correspondence, a memorandum, a book, a plan, a
map, a drawing, a diagram, a pictorial or
graphic work, a photograph, a film, a microfilm,
a sound recording, a videotape, a machine
readable record, any other documentary material,
regardless of physical form or characteristics,
and any copy thereof, and
- (b)
subject to the regulations, any record that is
capable of being produced from a machine
readable record under the control of an
institution by means of computer hardware and
software or any other information storage
equipment and technical expertise normally used
by the institution;
("document")
-
"regulations"
-
means the regulations made under this Act;
("règlements")
-
"responsible minister"
-
means the minister of the Crown who is
designated by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council
under
- Personal information
- (2)
Personal information does not include information about
an individual who has been dead for more than thirty years.
[R.S.O. 1990, c.F.31, s.2.]
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Part I - Administration ==>
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