Access to Information and Records

Introduction

Access to information under FIPPA includes individuals’ right to access and request correction of personal information about themselves held by a public body. This would include records that contain medical information, such as a medical file created and stored in a hospital, or academic or healthcare records at a university. These records pertain to, and are released to the individual requesting them.

Access to information also includes providing the public with access to the records held by public bodies other than those containing only the information of the individual requesting them. In this situation, a person is requesting general records of the public body and all personal information is redacted from the records before they are produced.

To review, Records include: books, documents, maps, drawings, photographs, letters, vouchers, papers and any other thing on which information is recorded or stored by graphic, electronic, mechanical or other means, but does not include a computer program or any other mechanism that produces records. They include e-mails (whether work-related or not), file notes, meeting notes, written and audio recorded phone messages, calendars, memos, handwritten notes, journals, sticky notes, photographs, videos, sound recordings and text messages.