Allegations levelled by the United Conservative Party in 2017, suggesting Alberta’s NDP had improperly deleted at least 859,861 emails in their first year after forming government in 2015, have been found to be “unsubstantiated” in a report released by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner on Tuesday.
However, the privacy commissioner said access-to-information requests made by the Official Opposition in 2015, and the public interest in the matter that followed, “helped to initiate internal reviews with the aim to improve the use of email in the context of the Government of Alberta’s records management program.”
“Overall, this investigation reinforces the fundamental importance of a comprehensive, effective records management program to ensure that public bodies are able to fulfil their access and privacy obligations under the FOIP Act, and for meeting other business and legal responsibilities,” Commissioner Jill Clayton said in a news release on Tuesday.
Among Clayton’s recommendations based on her investigation are that Service Alberta compile annual statistics from each department, find a way to measure and report on the compliance of a records management plan and develop a way of ensuring all staff understand the regulations regarding email and follow them. Clayton also recommended that Service Alberta ensure that records required by a “business, legal, regulatory or FOIP Act requirement” are properly identified by each government department.
In December 2015, the Wildrose Party (which later merged with the Progressive Conservatives to form the UCP) asked to be informed of how many emails were stored within inboxes of senior government and political staff. According to the privacy commissioner, such requests were also made in February 2016 and the following spring and that the subsequent requests also asked for the number of emails in sent, deleted and draft folders.
“Data gathered from these access requests was analyzed in a report,” the privacy commissioner said on Tuesday.
In September 2017, the UCP wrote a letter to the privacy commissioner and issued their own news release expressing concerns about the government’s use of email. A month later, the privacy commissioner opened an investigation into the concerns. According to the commissioner, among the UCP’s allegations were that Alberta Transportation offered a draw for a gift card for employees who deleted the most emails.
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READ MORE: Alberta’s privacy chief reviewing 800,000 deleted government emails
The privacy commissioner’s probe explored a number of things, including how Service Alberta responded to the Official Opposition’s access-to-information requests, the government’s email system and “Service Alberta’s role in setting, communicating and monitoring email usage and retention policies and procedures.”
“The investigation found that Service Alberta’s guidelines, standards and procedures for information and email management are detailed and emphasize the need to identify and segregate official records from transitory records,” the privacy commissioner said. “However, there was no consistent storage location for official records in Government of Alberta departments, training was not compulsory in all departments and a compliance assessment program had not been established to ensure that staff members receive training and are following the records management plan for their department.
“Service Alberta indicated it was in the process of developing an information management reporting and compliance program, but no details were provided.”
The commissioner said the probe also found that the number of emails in a staff member’s inbox “has no bearing on whether official records are properly identified and retained.”
“The investigation concluded a majority of email mailboxes retained more records than required,” the privacy commissioner said. “It appeared that most staff erred on the side of caution and kept emails rather than disposing of emails, and managed these emails by creating subfolders to which emails were transferred from inboxes.
“However, two interviewees said they actively deleted most emails. These two senior staff members said that they primarily sent and received requests for information and considered these not to be official records. The investigation noted that requests and replies for information would likely support business decisions and should be considered official records.”
The privacy commissioner recommends that Service Alberta begin planning to put in place a “government-wide official records electronic storage repository.”
Based on the conclusions, the investigation made three recommendations that centred on what Service Alberta’s information management compliance program should include and that Service Alberta should begin planning to implement a government-wide official records electronic storage repository.
READ MORE: B.C. NDP takes fire over deleted emails once again
Watch below: (From December 2015) A report is recommending the British Columbia government ban the practice of triple-deleting emails. Keith Baldrey reports.
You can read the privacy commissioner’s report in its entirety here:
The privacy commissioner also developed guidelines for handling emails. You can read the guidelines in the document here:
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