Decision from Information Access Commission 20000906

January 20, 1999, the applicant addresses himself to the organization to obtain the detailed report of the checks which were made relating to it with the C.R.P.Q. since 1979. He specifies that he wants the date of the event, the reason, which body of police and the place.

February 23, 1999, the organization calls upon article 28 of the law for him to refuse the access of them.

March 8, 1999, the applicant claims Commission which it revises this decision of the organization.

The person in charge for the access, Me Monique Gauthier, deposits the documents claimed by the applicant under confidential fold. She stresses that the request aims at obtaining the requests for information which were made by policemen to the file of the Center of police information of Quebec (indicated CRPQ hereafter). She affirms that there is not any more any other document in relation to the request.

Mrs. Gauthier reports that the organization is a manager of system CRPQ and that it was impossible to recall documents before 1994, the capacity of the system is to store the information over one 5 years period. She makes share that the documents in litigation are the extraction of the newspaper of the transactions of the CRPQ and that the Commission already decided that the newspaper of the transactions profits from the restriction of article 28 of the law ⁽¹⁾and, in this file, of paragraphs 2, 3 and 6.

28. A public organization must refuse to confirm the existence or to give communication of information obtained by a person who, under the terms of the law, is charged to prevent, detect or repress the crime or the infringements with the laws, when its disclosure would be likely:

(...)

2 ^Oto block the course of an investigation;

3° to reveal a method of investigation, a confidential source of information, a program or an action plan intended to prevent, detect or to repress the crime or the infringements with the laws;

(...)

6 ^Oto reveal the components of a communication system intended for the use of a person charged to ensure observation of the law;

(...)

Mrs. Gauthier explains that the majority of the bodies of police have a data-processing link with the CRPQ and each body of police can feed it or to question it in accordance with article 39.1 of Law of font ⁽²⁾She adds that article 61 of the law makes it possible a body of police to communicate to another body of police without the assent of the person concerned.

39.1. Safety maintains one central service of information having for goal to facilitate the detection of the crime and the tracking of their authors and places this service at the disposal of the other bodies of police

Mrs. Gauthier affirms that it is impossible to control or to know the reasons which encouraged the police officers to question the CRPQ. It attests that the communication of the documents in litigation would make it possible to the applicant to know the service of font which questioned the CRPQ by decoding the number of the agency but would not allow therefore to know the reason of the consultation. She makes the point that the step of the police officer with the CRPQ can relate to a checking of routine or a criminal act. She specifies that the Police chief with the police deontology requires, on the occasion, within the framework of its functions this newspaper of the transactions of the CRPQ. She repeats that the document in litigation does not make it possible to connect the consultation to an event in particular and that this search would require organization which it produces a new document within the meaning of article 15 of the law.

The organization presents a Ex proof leaves according to article 20 of the rules of evidence of the Commission.

20. The Commission can take note, in the absence of the applicant and in camera, of a document that the public organization or the third claims to have to be withdrawn from the access under the terms of a restriction envisaged on section II of the Law ⁽³⁾

The Commission reports that Mrs. Gauthier and Mr. Yvan Bilodeau, sergeant with the Safety of Quebec, reviewed the information in litigation and puts forward the reasons to restrict the access of them.

The applicant deposits a document entitled " Invitation of compassion for an investigation in order to build a better country ". He pleads to want to obtain the documents in litigation to restore the truth and to avoid confusion because, he believes, there was crossing of identity with a person born the same day as him.

I examined the documents in litigation and it acts of the newspaper of the transactions. The Commission already decided that these last documents required by the applicant profit from the restriction of article 28 of the law ⁽⁴⁾and because they are truffles codes which make inapplicable article 14 of the law.

14. A public organization cannot to refuse the access to a document for the only reason that this document comprises certain information which it must or can refuse to communicate under the terms of the present law

If a request relates to a document comprising such information, the public organization can refuse the access of them if this information forms the substance of it. In the other cases, the public organization must give access to the document requested after having extracted from them only the information to which the access is not authorized.