Recent Articles
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New Ontario Privacy Impact Assessment Guideline
Today’s article summarizes the most important changes between the 2015 and 2025 versions of IPCO’s PIA guideline and explains how these changes may affect your institution’s privacy management practices.
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Personal Liability for FOI Mistakes
Given that the Acts assign responsibility for responding to FOI requests personally to the heads of institutions and their delegates, individuals involved in processing requests may reasonably wonder whether their actions — intentional or not — could result in personal civil liability. In other words, could a head or employee be sued for failing to…
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Data Sharing Agreements
A recently announced data-sharing MOU demonstrates IPCO’s compliance with its own guidance. By issuing this MOU, IPCO has put in place a Data Sharing Agreement (DSA) of its own to facilitate information sharing with another government entity.
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Drafting Privacy Impact Assessments in 2025
Today’s article explains how to draft Privacy Impact Assessments “right now”, as of the second half of 2025, using the best currently available resources, while ensuring compliance with the new legislative requirements.
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IPCO Instructs Requestor to Resubmit FOI Request
Today’s article is a response to a question from an FOI Assist Knowledge Base reader in Ontario.
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Reasonable Search Affirmed
Although institutions are expected to make a genuine effort to locate all records responsive to a request, institutions are not required to prove with absolute certainty that no responsive records (or no additional responsive records) exist in response to an access request. Under both FIPPA and MFIPPA, it is sufficient for an institution to provide…
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FOIPN Presentation: Frivolous and Vexatious Requests
FOI Assist was proud to sponsor, exhibit and present at this year’s Freedom of Information Police Network (FOIPN) Conference, held earlier this week at Science North in Sudbury, Ontario. A copy of the slide deck from the Frivolous and Vexatious Requests presentation is available below.
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FOI Assist is at Science North!
FOI Assist is proud to be a sponsor and exhibitor at the 2025 Freedom of Information Police Network (FOIPN) Conference, taking place this week at Science North in Sudbury, Ontario.
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Requests for Continuing Access
In Ontario, requestors can make requests for “continuing access” to records held by an institution.
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Transitory Records
Institutions regularly generate and receive a wide variety of records, but not every record is intended for long-term retention. Records that serve only temporary purposes and hold no ongoing institutional or public value are referred to as transitory records.
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New IPCO Guidelines for the Law Enforcement Exemption
The Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario (IPCO) has released a new interpretation bulletin providing key guidance and case citations for institutions applying the Law Enforcement exemption under Ontario’s access to information legislation.
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When are Personal Phone Records Subject to FOI?
For the past two years, a significant case has been unfolding in Ontario’s Freedom of Information (FOI) system, highlighting the delicate balance between expectations of privacy on our personal devices and the public’s demand for access to government records. In late 2022, Global News submitted an FOI request seeking access to Premier Doug Ford’s personal…
FOI Assist Knowledge Base 