EDMONTON – An investigation into the Edmonton Police Service (EPS)’s Project Operation Warrant Execution (Project OWE) found it violated the FOIP Act.
The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) ruled that the EPS operation – intended to address a large number of outstanding warrants in Edmonton – broke the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP Act). (Read the full OPIC report below).
Project OWE was carried out in two stages in 2012.
First, police launched a public campaign – using billboards, signs and information online – to encourage people with outstanding warrants to come forward and deal with them.
If outstanding warrants weren’t addressed by a certain date, Project OWE explained that the name and photo of the person involved would be advertised publicly.
“Throughout the process of the next month we will be publishing pictures,” said EPS Staff Sgt. Regan James, in February 2012, ahead of the project launch. “We will be actively putting those faces out of people that we select that we feel are worthy of being in the media. They’re a danger to the public.”
After April 2, 2012, the second part of Project OWE began.
The EPS published names, photographs, and other personal information of individuals in various local newspapers and on the EPS website.
The roughly 16,000 outstanding warrants related to everything from violent assaults to parking tickets.
In the first phase of the project, police successfully executed more than 5,600 warrants and arrested nearly 2,700 people.
Information and Privacy Commissioner Jill Clayton initiated an investigation into Project OWE on her own motion to ensure it complied with the FOIP Act and to ensure that the EPS considered the protection of personal information.
“Campaigns such as this, which include the public release of personal information, must always consider the privacy laws of this province,” said Clayton.
“This investigation demonstrates the importance of a planned and thoughtful approach to assessing privacy risks before launching any new initiative.”
On Monday, Clayton released the investigation report which concludes that “the EPS did not make reasonable security arrangements to protect personal information as required under the FOIP Act when it implemented Project OWE.”
The Information and Privacy Commissioner’s investigation also found that “the EPS had authority to disclose some, but not all, of the personal information, and that EPS did not limit the extent of personal information disclosed to what was necessary to carry out its purposes in a reasonable manner.”
The report also contains a number of recommendations to the EPS, including that it complete a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) for review prior to undertaking Project OWE again or any new initiative involving the public disclosure of personal information.
To read the full investigation report, click here.
In response to the OPIC report, EPS Chief Rod Knecht issued a statement Monday afternoon:
“The Edmonton Police Service has reviewed the recommendations of the OIPC and will establish a policy requiring a Privacy Impact Assessment, or similar legal review, through our FOIPP Office for new major projects or major initiatives involving the public disclosure of personal information.
Although the first Project OWE accomplished a lot, with more than 5,000 warrants cleared from the system, we acknowledge that some errors were made. The EPS plans to run additional Project OWE-style operations in the future after we have made the necessary changes to our policy and procedure. Following up on warrants is an important part of police work, as it is our responsibility to ensure that people with outstanding warrants are brought to justice and that the public is kept safe. Notwithstanding past efforts, thousands of warrants continue to be outstanding. From a public interest perspective, this is untenable. Given the risk posed by some of these offenders, the enormity of the task we were facing and the challenges of locating individuals who, by definition, have found themselves outside of the immediate grasp of the justice system, the EPS very much needed, and continues to need the assistance of the public to fulfill its statutory duty of executing warrants. While we will take the steps identified above, the EPS will continue to ask for the assistance of the public in performing this important task.”
Project OWE garnered some criticism when stage two began on April 2, 2012, when photographs of a 16-year-old girl wanted on an outstanding warrant were published as part of the campaign.
Several news organizations reported that the EPS had published information that identified a young offender and that the publication of the identity of offenders under the age of 18 without a court order would constitute a violation of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
Laurie Trahan, a lawyer with the Youth Criminal Defence Office, said revealing the girl’s identity without a judge’s permission was completely unacceptable.
Police removed the picture of the girl from their website.
Then, in a statement, the EPS said they regretted the incident, adding that it should not have occurred. The EPS then forwarded the matter to the Director of Law Enforcement. It was also sent to the RCMP and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for further investigation.
On April 4, 2012, the Information and Privacy Commissioner announced she had decided to conduct an investigation on Project OWE.
“The purpose of this investigation is to make sure this initiative is being carried out in compliance with FOIP, and that consideration has been given to the protection of personal information,” said the Commissioner, adding:
“The investigation is not focused on the disclosure of information relating to particular individuals, however if people feel their personal information was released under this initiative in contravention of FOIP, they can make a complaint to my office and we will investigate.”
The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner says it “received no complaints from individuals about the disclosure of their information by the EPS under Project OWE.”
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