The Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner recently found that a Victoria Police officer and Saanich Police officers had improperly accessed personal information about a Victoria resident.
Stephen Harrison, a Victoria resident who conducts independent police accountability, has filed a number of freedom of information requests with Victoria and Saanich police. In 2022, he submitted a request to both agencies to see what records the departments had on him.
While some of the information he expected appeared in the results, there was something that shouldn’t have been there.
One Victoria Police Department officer and two Saanich police officers looked him up in the Police Records Information Management Environment (PRIME) database, which contains personal information about a person’s interactions with police, including any 911 calls or whether they witnessed a crime.
The police should only search someone in PRIME if it is for investigative purposes.
When Harrison saw this, he made complaints to the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s Office about this use of PRIME at least three times. The result?
“In summary and based on the above analysis, your complaint has merit because SPD personnel violated Section 30 of FIPPA,” the OIPC’s decision on the complaint against the two Saanich police officers said.
“It is my conclusion that the VPD police officer was not authorized to access your personal information on 9 February 2017,” the VicPD decision said. “As such, I justify your complaint.”
Harrison says he’s grateful for the OIPC’s finding, but it’s troubling.
“It can certainly be a little disturbing that people from a police agency who have access to people’s personal information are using that and looking up people when they shouldn’t,” Harrison said.
The OIPC said departments should conduct regular privacy training for all staff to ensure they know their privacy requirements when handling information through PRIME.
CHEK News requested interviews with both Saanich and Victoria police, and both declined but instead sent statements via email.
Victoria Police say the officer agreed access to the PRIME database to search for Harrison was unauthorized.
“As the report states, the OIPC’s remedy is to take the matter up with the officer involved, which has been done,” the statement said. “As a next step, we have notified the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner about this matter and are working with them to determine the next steps.”
VicPD also says it has recently retrained all officers and staff on their Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act duties.
“It is clear in OPIC’s decision that this is a circumstance where an individual did not follow our privacy training and protocols,” the statement said. “At this time, we see no need to introduce additional protocols as we address both the individual issue and overall awareness appropriately.”
Saanich Police say training on the duties of officers and employees under FIPPA is under development.
“The Saanich Police Department respects the decision on this matter made by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner and its recommendation to conduct regular privacy training with all officers to ensure a clear understanding of our obligations under Section 30 of the Freedom of Information and The Protection of Privacy Act,” Saanich Police said in a statement.
“This training is currently under development.”
Harrison says he doesn’t think employee training is enough and that more needs to be done to ensure people’s privacy and data are protected at PRIME.
“I had several recommendations for ways to prevent this from happening again. One would be for employees to have to record the reason for every PRIME look at what they are doing,” Harrison said. “The second part would be for an auditor to audit such searches.”
While Harrison says he is pleased with the OIPC’s finding, he wonders how many other people were searched in PRIME inappropriately who are unaware because they did not file an FOI.
“I suspect there are probably more people like the local BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) youth activists, or you know, the people involved in the Bastion Square mural and artwork project,” Harrison said.
“I think that’s probably where some of these searches are going on as well, and things will never be revealed.” Obviously that would also be inappropriate.’
CHEK News contacted the Department of Public Safety and the Attorney General, who oversees police in British Columbia, to ask if changes to the PRIME database will be implemented next. A ministry spokesman said it would provide an answer “early next week”.
RELATED: Saanich, Victoria Police officers among those investigated for potential misconduct by OPCC
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