One group that probably avails themselves more of this act than others would be the 300,000 people who work for the public service. Those who apply for jobs within the public service can apply under the Privacy Act to find out why they weren't promoted, why they didn't get certain jobs, why they weren't hired. From that point of view, I think that every manager has to be very much concerned with what he or she does with data in terms of working with people.
Do public servants have a fair showing in terms of privacy legislation, going back to 1982? You see soldiers who say “I didn't get my sergeant's rank”, or “I didn't get my promotion to major”, or “Someone has written a bad report on me, and I would like to get a copy of that report”.
I do know that many federal institutions are reluctant to provide the complete details on particular individuals when they request that information. With the present act and the changes we're talking about here, will it in any way enhance the ability, or will it be a further problem to managers within the public service? If a job is open and ten people apply, only one person gets it and there are six people who are dissatisfied, how big an operation are we involved with in terms of the privacy legislation?