Jamie Jelinski feels a bit like David — and the Toronto police are his Goliath.
The difficulty is, he is apprehensive that this time Goliath would possibly win.
Jelinski filed a freedom of knowledge (FOI) request to Toronto police in June 2020 for data regarding the facial recognition know-how Clearview AI after the police service admitted to using the controversial tool starting in October 2019 and dedicated to cease utilizing it in February of the next yr.
Jelinski stated he filed the request hoping to find out how Clearview AI is utilized in observe — all a part of his analysis into visible identification methods and applied sciences utilized by Canadian legislation enforcement. However almost 5 years later, the visible tradition scholar nonetheless hasn’t acquired the entire responsive data, regardless of paying police greater than $200 for the remaining 1,100 pages of emails final July.
“To me it suggests they do not respect the laws that they are alleged to be working inside, they do not respect public transparency,” stated Jelinski, who’s now a lecturer within the College of Liverpool’s division of communication and media.
“In the event that they did not intend on disclosing this to me final yr, they need to not have accepted my cash.”
In Ontario, public establishments like police companies are topic to provincial or municipal freedom of knowledge and safety of privateness legal guidelines. The laws requires establishments to problem a call for FOI requests inside 30 days and to reveal the data if entry is granted in that timeframe, with just a few exceptions.
FOI specialists informed CBC Toronto that Jelinski’s expertise highlights why Ontario’s entry to info laws must be modernized — and why it wants to incorporate instruments to implement legislated timeframes and its personal orders to reveal data.
If the requester of knowledge disagrees with an establishment’s choice or believes it has failed to satisfy legislated timeframes, they will submit an enchantment to the Data and Privateness Commissioner of Ontario (IPC).
3 appeals for 1 request
Jelinski has submitted three IPC appeals for this request. The primary, as a result of Toronto police initially denied him entry to any data. Then, after winning that appeal in 2023, he filed one in 2024 when Toronto police did not problem him a closing choice letter about whether or not he’d have entry to the paperwork. He filed the third enchantment earlier this yr, as a result of he hadn’t acquired the data he paid for final summer time.
“I’ve to power them by the IPC each step of the way in which,” stated Jelinski.
In response to his most up-to-date enchantment, the privateness commissioner requested Toronto police to offer Jelinski copies of the data by April 24. The service did not meet that deadline. So in an electronic mail final week, the IPC informed Jelinski it will problem an order to reveal the data.
CBC Toronto requested police why Jelinski’s request has taken so lengthy, why it did not meet the latest deadline from the privateness commissioner — and when it’s that police intend to offer Jelinski with the data he is paid for.
Police say some data launched
The service declined an interview request, however in an electronic mail, a spokesperson stated sure data have already been launched to Jelinski and famous the continued IPC mediation course of.
“The Toronto Police Service has requested an extension on this file,” stated spokesperson Stephanie Sayer within the electronic mail. “Any updates are being communicated to the requester by the IPC.”
Jelinski acquired some data in February 2022 and one extra file in 2023 after profitable his first enchantment however hasn’t acquired the remainder. As of Wednesday, the IPC had but to problem the order to Toronto police to reveal the data.
However even when it does, Jelinski worries police will not comply and that then his solely choices can be to attend or take police to court docket, which is dear.
“They will simply ignore it, and nothing occurs to them,” he stated. “There must be some updating of the laws.”
Why enforcement is not straightforward
Regardless that IPC orders are legally binding, a former IPC assistant commissioner says the Ontario oversight physique does not have a simple solution to implement them, not like in another provinces.
“This example is type of distressing, as a result of it actually should not be the case that enforcement falls again onto the shoulders of the requester,” stated David Goodis, an entry and privateness lawyer who labored for the IPC for 30 years till early 2021.
“Among the extra trendy FOI legal guidelines permit individuals, commissioners — actually anybody — to file commissioner orders with the court docket so that they are enforceable as a court docket order. And that may make a distinction.”
Each B.C. and Alberta’s entry to info legal guidelines have that provision, based on Goodis. To undertake the same mechanism, the lawyer stated the Ontario legislature must amend the Freedom of Data and Safety of Privateness and Municipal Freedom of Data and Safety of Privateness acts.
Premier Doug Ford’s workplace didn’t reply to questions on whether or not his authorities is contemplating such modifications.
“What we’re speaking about is fixing the act to cope with these outlier instances,” stated Goodis. “In my expertise, that is actually uncommon.”
Whereas these instances aren’t the norm, public coverage researcher and FOI professional Ken Rubin stated he is seeing this type of response increasingly more typically when he recordsdata requests.
“Overview commissions do not precisely have penalty-making energy,” he stated. “I feel sure businesses have realized that, and so both they ignore [requesters] or they simply drag it out.”
Each Goodis and Rubin stated the almost five-year wait Jelinski is going through is manner too lengthy.
Complexity and quantity of requests a problem
A latest Toronto Police Service Board report Sayer offered to CBC outlines the service’s FOI statistics for 2024 and the hurdles it is going through in responding to requests.
“Assembly the mandated 30-day compliance outlined in Part 19 of the Act continues to be difficult,” reads the report submitted by Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw.
“That is primarily because of the quantity and complexity of the requests, the kind, medium and quantity of the data being requested and [the] wanted session with inner and exterior stakeholders for sure requests.”
Final yr, Toronto police acquired 5,414 FOI requests — 403 greater than it did in 2023. There have been additionally 758 requests carried over to this yr from 2024. The service’s common compliance fee for finishing requests inside the mandated 30-day timeframe was 73.6 per cent final yr, down about three proportion factors from 2023.
So what does this wait imply for Jelinski?
His expertise with this FOI request and others impressed him to jot down a e-book about how his fellow visible students can use entry requests, which he says are hardly ever used for analysis in his subject. However Jelinski cannot end the e-book till he will get these data.
“It is a key case research,” he stated. “I am unable to write up that chapter with out the paperwork.”
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