Dear Archival Colleagues:

I wish to provide you an update concerning on the proposed Ontario Privacy of
Personal Information Act.

Yesterday, Carolyn Heald from the Archives of Ontario, Garron Wells from the Council
of Ontario Universities, and I met for two hours with representatives from the
Ministry of Consumer and Business Services (MCBS) to discuss archives’ concerns with
the proposed private sector legislation. The following developments have occurred:

1. Reduction of the Passage of Time Clause:
The consultation draft of the Act provided for the disclosure of personal
information without third party consent if the record is 150 years old or more or if
the records subject has been dead for 75 years or more.  MCBS has now reduced the
passage of time clause. The revised bill will now permit disclosure without consent
of both personal information and personal health information 100 years after the
records’ creation or 20 years after the records’ subjects’ death.

2. Amendment to the Destruction of Records Clause:
The consultation draft of the Act provided that an organization shall not retain
personal information once the purpose for which it was collected has been fulfilled.
The revised bill will provide that personal information may be transferred to an
archives for permanent preservation and historical research.

3. New Provisions in the Regulations for Research Agreements:
The consultation draft of the Act did not permit disclosure without consent of
personal information for historical research or archival purposes. Nor did the
consultation draft provide for research agreements to allow the release of personal
information subject to appropriate conditions being met. The revised bill, however,
in the regulations will permit disclosure without consent of personal information
under the terms of research agreements. The regulations will list the specific
conditions to be met and leave it to archival institutions to determine any given
cases and whether or not these conditions have been met.

4. No Exemption for Private Records:
The revised bill will apply to personal information in all archival holdings
including the private records of individuals and organizations.  MCBS
representatives were concerned with protecting personal information relating to a
third party who was not the records’ donor or creator.  MCBS officials felt that
research agreements were an effective way to both protect third party information
contained in private records and to permit archives to disclose this information
without consent.  It is still unclear how the Act will be reconciled with existing
donor agreements and with monetary appraisals based on the records’ being open and
accessible.  These issues will have to be resolved in the regulations.

5. Retroactive Application:
The draft consultation bill provides that the rules governing use and disclosure of
personal information apply personal information collected prior to the new law
taking affect.  Under this retroactive application, archival records that have
already been used by researchers would be closed.  MCBS is currently working on the
issue of information that is publicly available.

In order to meet its January 2004 deadline, the government plans to introduce the
proposed legislation on September 30, 2002.  Representatives from the Ministry will
be meeting with us later in the Winter to discuss the regulations and to resolve the
outstanding archival issues.

Finally, on behalf of the AAO, I would also like to take this opportunity to thank
Carolyn Heald and Garron Wells for their assistance on this issue.  I am especially
grateful to Garron for resisting the urge to pull out a water gun (believe me - at
times during the meeting this was difficult).

Best Regards,
Loryl MacDonald
AAO President
(416) 978-7657