How to file a Freedom of Information Request in BC

Mark Weiler is doing his doctoral work on Freedom of Information requests. Here are some instructions he sent for how to make a request. This doesn't work for the Legislative Assembly, but it does for the University and other government offices.

1. The act is called BC's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

2. The text of the request has to satisfy one basic condition: it's a request for records that's specific enough that someone with experience in the office can find it.

3. Email the request to a high up official or clerk. Some places have Privacy Officers or Information and Privacy Officers. Technically as soon as you ask for documents, FOIPOP kicks in. The reality is that most public employees probably don't know their duties, so if you add "This is a freedom of information request" then it should wake our public employees up.

Tip: Texts of request should be records or documents, not information or questions. In this way, FOI is misleading... it should really be called "Freedom of Records".

Examples...
Bad: "How many people work at city hall?" (this is a question)
Good: "Send me records that reflect the number of people who work at city hall" (this is good because it's for records
Better: "Send me records that reflect the number of full time employees who work at city hall as of Aug 1, 2009 (this is very specific; it shouldn't take them long to find it)


Tip: If they ask "Why do you want it?", answer "You don't need to know" (hard to say, but I did say it once :)

Tip: If they ask for a written request with a signature, say "That is not required under section 5 of the FOIPOP Act"


3. They have 30 business days to respond.

4. If it takes them longer than 3 hours to search for the records, they can charge a fee.

5. If it at any point you want a second opinion you can email me or call BC's Office of Information and Privacy Commissioner or BC's Freedom of Information and Privacy Association -- they answer questions over the phone and are nice.

6. There are two big barriers to FOIPOP. a) Public employees lack of knowledge about their legislative duties. b) Applicants not realizing how much power they have. The proper mind-set for public employees and applicants to have is to think of records in the custody of public bodies (with limited exceptions e.g., protecting personal privacy) as being like books in a public library. This is a dramadical.

Here's a website with the texts of a bunch of foi's I've made....
http://www.opengovernmentrecords.net/ogr/index.php/fjpsc/ogr/publishedrequests

Mark