12.21.2010

Personal emails exempt from FOI

The Ontario Super Court of Justice ruled recently that personal emails stored on government services are not subject to FOI requests. This has pretty important implications for any employee who works in a government organization and uses their government email for personal use. Employees are always told that whatever they write in an email from that account (or receive to that account) is subject to FOI, and so they should be careful; this ruling seems to state otherwise.

It should be noted, however, that many organizations (including those that are FOI-able) have rules around employee use of technology that may preclude email use for personal business, as it constitutes using a "resource" for personal gain.

Full link to the full story below.

Globe & Mail

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