Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act
The Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA) is intended to provide individuals with a right of access to information under the control of municipal institutions and to protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves held by those institutions. The Act applies to municipalities (paragraph 2(1)(a)), district social services administration boards (paragraph 2(1)(b)), any agency, board, corporation, commission, the members of which are all appointed by a municipality (subsection 2(3)), and every local housing corporation incorporated under Part III of the Social Housing Reform Act (Regulation 372/91). (Housing providers not deemed to be institutions in the above provisions may still face similar restrictions on the collection and use of personal information—see subsection 162(1) of the Social Housing Reform Act and sections 21 to 23 and Table 1 of Regulation 368/01)).
MFIPPA entitles every person to the right of accessing a record in the control of a municipal institution unless the request to access the record is “frivolous or vexatious” or the record falls within one of several exemptions relating to law enforcement, third party information, personal privacy and solicitor-client privilege, among other things (see sections 6 to 15). Many of these exemptions are themselves subject to exceptions. Decisions denying access to records made by an institution’s “head” (defined in section 3) can be appealed to a Commissioner.
MFIPPA protects personal privacy by regulating “personal information” (defined in section 2), including the purposes for which it is collected, the sources from which it is collected, the uses that may be made of it, the circumstances in which it may be disclosed, and the manner in which it is to be retained (see sections 27 to 33, and regulations).
Link: Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (www.e-laws.gov.on.ca)