Nova Scotia Government Moves to Protect Privacy of Employees
TREASURY/POLICY BOARD--Nova Scotia Government Moves to Protect Privacy of Employees
The Nova Scotia government will not be releasing personal information about the day-to-day activities of government workers if requested under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIPOP) Act, Justice Minister Michael Baker said today.
The government has received a number of applications under the FOIPOP Act recently for copies of personal schedules, daytimers, agendas and calendars of various government managers and support staff. Mr. Baker said such requests have and will continue to be denied under privacy provisions of the act.
"We believe our employees at all levels are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy about how they manage their work schedules every day," said the minister. "They shouldn't have to feel as if someone is tracking their every movement."
The FOIPOP Act already allows for public release of a considerable amount of information about government employees, including their salaries, expenses, job descriptions, contracts, documents and correspondence.
The province has also recently expanded the scope of the act to cover more government agencies and staff, and has introduced legislation that will require those who lobby government officials to register who they are meeting with and why.
Mr. Baker said it is unreasonable and potentially unsafe to allow the public to scrutinize how an employee manages personal work responsibilities through the day, including where they have been or are likely to be.
He said Nova Scotia's position is consistent with that of Canada's privacy commissioner, George Radwanski, who clearly outlined the importance of privacy rights for public employees in a letter dated May 10 to the Information Commissioner of Canada.
Mr. Radwanksi described what he called the pursuit of agendas as totally unacceptable, saying that an agenda -- the record of all an individual's meetings and activities throughout each day -- is indisputably personal information.
"This is not merely a legal point, but a profoundly human one," Mr. Radwanski said in his letter, which is available on the Internet. "To make such information available for public scrutiny is psychologically similar to expecting an individual to spend his whole day, every day, under the eye of a TV camera that broadcasts his every move. . . No Canadian should be subject to such invasion of privacy."
Mr. Baker noted that Nova Scotia has the most open and generous FOIPOP Act in Canada for making information available. A growing number of applicants are asking for and receiving thousands of documents every year, relating to all manner of government business.
"However, in Nova Scotia, we have to balance the public's right to know with an individual's right to privacy," he said.
The FOIPOP Act allows applicants to appeal decisions of government bodies. The government will stress the importance of preserving employee privacy in any case that proceeds to appeal.