Complaint: Eight complaints focused on the Privy Council Office’s (PCO) decision to refuse to disclose as personal information (section 19) travel expenses for members of the Prime Minister’s staff who are not part of the regular public service (known as “exempt staff”).

Investigation: The OIC learned that when any requested records related to exempt staff contain personal information PCO treats all the records as personal information. However, in doing so in this case PCO had improperly withheld information that was not personal information and some that was already publicly available. In addition, PCO did not provide sufficient details to show that it had sought the consent of the individuals to whom the personal information related to disclose it or had considered disclosing some or all of the information in the public interest.

Outcome: In finding the eight complaints to be well founded, the Commissioner formally recommended that PCO disclose the information she considered not to be personal information and reconsider whether it could disclose any publicly available personal information. While disagreeing with the Commissioner’s findings and recommendations, PCO released additional personal information, including some with the consent of the individuals to whom it related.

Information Commissioner’s position:

• Taking a blanket approach to treating certain records fails to take into account the purposes of the Act, including that exceptions to the right of access should be limited and specific.
• To validly exempt information under section 19, institutions must show that the information meets the definition of personal information in section 3 of the Privacy Act, and that none of the exceptions found at section 19(2) applies.
• Institutions must disclose any information they could reasonably sever from the exempted information under section 25 of the Act. In this case, for example, PCO did not do so, withholding parts of records that contained no personal information.