Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2011

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Gentlemen, thank you for being here today to share your expertise and your views. Thank you also for your interest in the committee's study on a more open federal government.

Since we started the discussions, we have heard a lot of comparisons with countries like Australia, the United States or Great Britain. But those are countries where only one language is spoken. In terms of opening up government, they do not have the major obstacle that Canada has with its two official languages. Those countries only use one language.

My first question goes to Mr. Wallace. When a member of the public asks you for a translation in an access to information request, how does it work? Do you give them the document in its original language? Does the city of Toronto translate it? If not, do people have to find a way of translating the document themselves?

[David Wallace]

At 311 we receive requests in 180 different languages. We have the capability for translation to receive requests for services. Because Toronto is such a multicultural city, we have further challenges than just two languages. We have at least 180 that we're working with, and different dialects and so on. We can receive requests in all those various languages, and we have professional translation services to support that. We also aim to deliver the request in the language in which it came, if it comes through the official process.

Some of the challenges include the website itself. On the website we allow for different translation capability through Google Translate, and so on. It's not perfect translation, but it's better than if you didn't have it. We put a disclaimer up so you understand that. We have found that it has generated more interest in different languages.

Absolutely, I agree that other countries with single languages may not have the same challenges that Canada has at the federal level, but at the municipal level, with the multitude of different levels of service we have to do in many different languages, we have to be prepared to work on all those perspectives.

So I would say that we don't have an official 180-language act. We don't have that in all our different documentation, all those different things. You have that challenge at this level in the two languages. But being able to receive it, understand the person in their language, and give the information back is a good start. The website will still be a challenge in searches and so on, in those languages in the pure electronic mode. But in assist mode, which 311 offers, or the FYI process offers, we see that working quite well.

That's how we deal with it today at the city.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Wallace, earlier, our Chair asked one of the questions that I wanted to ask about the 50% drop in requests you have received. He asked you that question in the context of saving money. What is your annual budget for access to information requests and for establishing a more open structure? What is the annual budget for the program?

[David Wallace]

Again, that's in the clerk's area. There's a group devoted to corporate information management service that also deals with records management and freedom of information requests. So there is a budget for the people who work there. That information is available online, but I will get it for you so you have that focused information. There are professionals who deal with that, and then there's the time of people in the program to source the information. There's more than just the budget for that area. There are the people who have to provide the information from the programs.

As I said earlier, we can estimate what those savings would be, based on past experience of how long it took and how much effort it took--and in the IT area, how much processing we have to do to find and search all of the e-mails, which in some cases go back years. So we do a lot of processing, and that takes away from our day-to-day work in servicing the public, and so on. The more data online, the less of this there is. Being more transparent means a lot of savings in many different ways, and better services. I can get you some estimates on that and the budget of the area that actually processes.

We don't expect that area to shrink, because they do a lot of different things. But the amount of coverage they can do.... Again, because the kinds of requests coming in are more focused now and they can get the rest of the information on the more general requests up on the open data and other parts of the web, it means that the professionals can deal with them more quickly because they're more focused. So there's another value--not only saving money--in giving better service.

I want to underline the value point that even though we're getting fewer, we're getting more focused requests. And that, by its very nature, improves the response we can give to the public. But as I said earlier, I can certainly supply the estimated savings from that and the budget information on how we do the processing today.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mrs. Thaï Thi Lac.

Mr. Abbott, you have five minutes.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Thank you, and again thank you to our witnesses.

There's one area we haven't touched on at all today. I'm thinking of the issue of public safety or security.

With the access to information, that information is available to the Toronto 17, or to other people who have very malicious intent for our society. What thought has been put into all of these offerings you've given us? They're excellent, but I haven't heard anything at all about the precautions that must be built in. Indeed, are there precautions built in?

[David Wallace]

Yes, there actually are a lot of precautions built in. That's a very good point.

For example, linear inventory is not provided. You can't see how many kilometres of piping or electrical or any of that information, which is never going to be allowed online. An engineer could apply through a proper process and be fully validated and so on, but that type of information—our utilities information, what's under the pavement—is not exposed on the open data perspective.

There is another type of information that most American cities are starting to think about putting up there and it's called crime data. In fact if you go to New York, you can actually see who is being accused and all kinds of stuff. From a privacy perspective, that is something we have worked through, and our civic engagement group has worked with the police. That's just not doable, and it's something that, from a Canadian perspective, is not acceptable.

What we do, though, is create what we call neighbourhood indicators, and they're based on various factors and different characteristics. You can get a reading in a neighbourhood of what's going on there, not just in terms of crime but other elements, economics and so on. It gives you, in a forum with all the information around it, what the experience is and what's happening, but the raw, detailed information that is in the police files and so on stays exactly there.

We've taken a tremendous amount of precautions. Once we were challenged in 2008 to do it, we took a year to prepare and really go through the details with our clerks, with our civic engagement, talking with the police, the community people, and so on, to really prepare and understand how we could do this. We also looked at examples that were out there.

Most information that's open is GIS information or maps, and that's because people want to know where something is. But it's also the easiest information to get out there. That's why you see the explosion on Google Maps and so on. But that only goes so far. People want to know what the characteristics are and what's really going on in their neighbourhood, and that's where these neighbourhood wellness indicators and other elements are helpful.

But they don't disclose public safety issues. On H1N1, all of the clinic information was up there, but obviously the health results and what was going on wasn't. So we work with our chief medical officer and all the different divisions and agencies to make sure, and they are the ones who pull the switch. They do the quality checklists. They're the ones who release the data. They get advice from clerks. They get advice from the information professionals. They talk to IT on the technical aspects, but they're the ones who say, “That data is ready to go.”

That's why, through that very detailed and ongoing consultation, what is up there is right and it has the proper metadata, and we know it's serving the public in all the possible ways, along with making the government itself more transparent, but in a proper way, in a way that is fulfilling our obligation to the citizens.

[Vincent Gogolek]

I think it's also important to not try to reinvent the wheel. Under the Access to Information Act, we've looked at a number of important governmental and societal issues. In the instance of public safety, obviously we don't want organized crime to be able to put in an ATI request to the RCMP saying, “I want a list of all informants in the United Nations Gang.” Well, clearly they wouldn't get that because the law would prevent that.

I would think that in putting similar considerations into the release of open data—and Mr. Wallace could perhaps comment on that—you would look at it through those same exemptions. Would this damage international relations? Would this violate privilege? Would it reveal a cabinet confidence? We don't have to go back and reinvent the wheel. We can look at it through the same perspective.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

To answer your comments on security issues, I have the same question but with respect to the potential use of this volume of information, the ease of access for malicious purposes. I'm not thinking of security now; I'm thinking of personally malicious purposes.

What thought goes into what appears in this cache of information?

[David Hume]

One of the things you have to realize is that certainly when you're looking at data sets, personal privacy is alongside public safety. It's going to be one of the key things you're going to examine. This is common data management practice. So when we think about things like Statistics Canada or the Canada Revenue Agency and the level of granular detail they have available to them, they issue reports, but they're done in an aggregated way and there is a de-practice of anonymization around data sets that is possible and has been in place for many, many years because of privacy implications.

So that will be a key criterion in looking at new data sets that you would be publishing. But the good news on that front is that while they may be concentrated in specific areas that are already really sophisticated about data production and collection and publishing, those practices are really well known, well respected, and well understood.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Abbott.

We're now going to move to Mr. Siksay for five minutes.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to go to Mr. Gogolek and ask a number of questions. I really appreciate the fact that you drew us back to the importance of the ATI process when we're considering the broader perspectives on open government and open data. I like the “push and pull” metaphor that you used, because I think it's very important for us to remember that and to remember that it's not going to disappear even with the best possible model of open government or open data.

I wanted to ask you to go over the BC Ferries situation with me a little bit because I don't quite understand—or maybe I do, but I'll pretend I don't. It seems like a good thing that BC Ferries, when they have information that's to be disclosed, put it up on their website so that everybody can see it. But you point that out as a problem. Could you say a bit more about why that's a problem for your organization? And are there other examples of how that's proven to be a problem?

[Vincent Gogolek]

I'll try to go through it very briefly.

Our initial reaction was cautiously optimistic when we heard they were going to be putting requests up online because this is a good thing. The CAIRS system existed federally, and that, as I noted in my written brief, should be replaced. But as more and more details became available, it became increasingly obvious that the system was designed not so much to increase transparency as to really make things difficult for certain requesters.

We've started to see more and more information. BC Ferries does not just put the information up on the website. They also issue a news release telling other news media that, “The Vancouver Sun has just got this information. The province, the CBC, CTV, everybody else, you have it. Go to our website, and you'll have the same stuff they spent months going after.”

They also still charge fees. They charge a lot of fees. We're just beginning some battles over fees.

So if you're the requester, you're having to jump through the hoops; you're having to pay money maybe; and at the end of the day, you don't get an extra minute to look at it.

The other thing is that, as FOI requests were coming out--because, of course, we immediately filed one on how they designed their system--one of the memos we found in the document dump, which they put up online and which we got three days later in paper form, said that officials of BC Ferries were looking at how they could proactively release some of the information that they knew they were going to be asked for.They could see the question about how much money the CEO of BC Ferries was making this year coming, but for whatever reason, there were a number of memos in which the people designing the website were saying, “So are we getting the content on this or what?” And then it mysteriously petered out. We may get that later after maybe another court case.

Clearly officials thought about this. They were looking at transparency. They were looking at proactive release, but with the system that's actually in place, you don't get that. You have to file a request. Officials have to go and approach the chair to try to find out what he made this year, instead of just putting it up, putting up his expenses, things like that.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

There have been examples too of journalists who have made requests. BC Ferries has posted all of the information. Everybody's had access to it at the same moment. Other news organizations scoop the journalist who made the request but interpret or make a mistake in the data and kind of ruin the story or ruin the ability to make transparent the issue that was originally being explored. I think there's been that situation, and this has thwarted a full discussion or an appropriate discussion by the person who was actually knowledgeable in the area of the issue they were doing the research into.

[Vincent Gogolek]

And it's unfortunate, because, again, in terms of discussing public issues, normally somebody would put in an FOI or an ATI request because they were interested in an area and they needed more information to explain how it works.

If you create a system in which there is essentially a race for who can hit the button faster, it's like a TV game show: who can get their story out there quickly? I hate to pick on BC Ferries--actually, I don't hate to pick on BC Ferries--but if you get the information, and it's up online, and you have to get your story out there quickly, you tell BC Ferries, “You have 10 minutes to get me your side of the story or we're just going with what we have.”

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

So should there be a timeline with this, so that the original requester gets it but there's a time lag before it's released later, or should it just be going to a CAIRS system where you know that somebody else has requested it?

[Vincent Gogolek]

There are competing issues, but there is a legal duty under the Access to Information Act and section 4 and section 6 of the B.C. act. The duty is to the requester, and I think it's something we're going to have to deal with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Siksay.

Dr. Bennett, for up to five minutes, and then Mr. Albrecht.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I'd like your advice on the best practice on the ATIP piece. The federal government used to have a site where you could apply to ATIP electronically, but for some reason they took it down two years ago. As to developing a future site, Mr. Wallace, would you log each request as it goes up and then give the answer to the person who asked for it first, with some sort of lag before the rest of the world gets it?

I think there was a view that if you at least put it up there you could prevent 32,000 identical requests. Does the person who asked for it get the answer a little before everybody else gets it?

[David Wallace]

In our process, if we receive it through an e-mail, we don't put the result of that detailed FOI request up online. It goes back to the originator. When we're talking about open data and all that, these are the proactive disclosure, routine disclosure elements, or specific FOI requests. So we follow the existing process for that. They get their information back, and we don't just post it all back up online.

This follows the normal process. I won't say we want to reduce requests, because there are some good ones, but if we see many different requests for the same thing, then we might decide that the information might produce a competitive advantage or might have something personal in it, and we might take another look at that information and see why we had to process it through ATI before. Maybe it should just be open. Maybe it should be part of our routine disclosures. Each division has a routine disclosure plan to go back and look at their FOI requests and examine why we were doing certain things and whether we need to continue. Then we can decide to put it up on the website, or put it up in the open data for self-service. So the divisions, through their routine disclosures processes, are actually helping to reduce some requests. But if you get an FOI request, it goes through the traditional process.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Is there any other country in the world where you still have to put a cheque in the mail and send it by snail mail to get an ATIP?

[David Hume]

I have no idea.

What I'd recommend to you, though, is an innovative group of public sector web developers in the United Kingdom called mySociety, mySociety.org. They're a non-governmental organization that likes to do government-related things. They designed a site called WhatDoTheyKnow.com. If you're considering what a web presence for access to information requests might look like, I'd recommend you have a look at it. It shows what kinds of requests have come in. It lists successful requests. It makes requesting transparent. You have to understand, this is not a government site so it's not necessarily completely up-to-date, but the design elements are interesting and worth examining.

[Vincent Gogolek]

I think there has to be a balancing. We want information to be more publicly available and we want to reduce the number of redundant requests. But at the same time, as we've seen with BC Ferries and other organizations, they've either said they will put up media requests—not a really good indication that you're trying to be transparent—or they only put up the requests and they don't do anything else with respect to transparency. This is what I call trompe l'oeil transparency. They're just doing this in the hope that people will become frustrated and stop putting up requests so there will be a lot less for them to put up.

As to how long a delay should be, we'd have to talk about that. I would think that if we haven't heard back from the requester in whatever period of time, days, weeks, then we'll put it up, because what we're talking about here is longer-term transparency. This isn't any vital interest that it must go up within 24 hours.

I'm open to being persuaded otherwise, but....

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Dr. Bennett.

Mr. Albrecht, for five minutes.