The Information and Privacy Commissioner, Michael Harvey, has released his Report P-2021-002 under authority of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, 2015. A summary of the Report is included below.

To view the Report in its entirety, please go to www.oipc.nl.ca/reports/commissioner.

Some highlights from the Report:

• A BWC program has the potential to capture a lot of personal information. Further, it has the potential to collect more information than needed for the identified purpose. It captures both audio and video. It may collect information about bystanders or individuals passing near the scene. If the incident is occurring in a private dwelling, it could record exceptionally private areas.

• Based on the information provided to OIPC during the course of this investigation, there are significant deficiencies in the Town’s compliance with the law.

• The Town’s submission emphasizes that the BWC program is on hold and that further changes to the program are expected before resumption.

• The Town, like any public body or public official that works for it, can only exercise its authority on the basis of law. In particular, the Town needs to have a clear legal basis for the collection, use, storage and disclosure of personal information. The Town is not clear on its legal authorities for the program and is further not clear on the various legal authorities of the Municipal Enforcement Officer across the range of duties in the job description. The notion that the Town has officials in the community exercising law enforcement authorities when it is unclear whether they have those authorities has implications for how they collect personal information, but beyond that, is quite troubling in general.

• BWCs are a highly privacy invasive tool used by law enforcement. The OIPC does not deny that there may be a place for them. However, it is worth reiterating that Canadian Commissioners have concluded that, while there may be specific situations that justify the use of BWCs, they should only be implemented where the public policy imperative balances against the privacy invasiveness. Many jurisdictions in Canada which have implemented BWCs have done so following extensive research and consultation with the community and parties such as Information and Privacy Commissioners, the provincial government, and Human Rights Commissioners. The Town has done none of this.

• The OIPC was also disappointed with the Town’s cooperation with this Office prior to and during this investigation. This Office learned of this initiative through the media and made numerous inquiries to the Town. Requests for information to Town officials would commonly go unanswered for weeks and months at a time. It was for this reason that a formal investigation was launched in December 2020 with the intent to give a clear legal framework to our investigation. Even still, the Town was delayed in responding to our requests for information. At the time of writing, the Mayor has not directly responded to our January 2021 letter to him about this subject, though the Town did ultimately and belatedly provide much of the information we requested.

• One challenge that the Town has faced during this period has been staff turnover. While this problem caused difficulties for our investigations, it is also relevant for the matter of a BWC program. The design and implementation of a legally compliant BWC program is complicated. We have significant doubts whether the Town, even fully staffed, has the capacity to properly design and implement such a program. This may help explain why it is difficult to find a Town of a comparable size – in this province or elsewhere in Canada – with such a program.

• The Town’s BWC policy and program are not compliant with ATIPPA, 2015. The Town should formally suspend its BWC program immediately. Notwithstanding that the program is “on hold”, the Town should provide certainty by formally suspending the program through a motion of Council. We are of the view that the Town should consider entirely abandoning the initiative and re-examine from scratch its approach to the policy problem of community trust of Town enforcement officials. If the Town remains committed to pursuing eventual re-implementation of this program, however, we recommend that it should, at a minimum, overhaul its policy through appropriate consultation, address the deficiencies identified in this report, and take the steps detailed in the recommendations.

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Media contact
Sean Murray
Director of Research and Quality Assurance
709-729-6309