OTTAWA – Widespread use of instant messaging in the federal government is threatening Canadians’ rights to access to information, says Canada’s information watchdog in a report tabled in the House of Commons on November 28. And unless the Conservatives develop a consistent, government-wide policy that requires instant messages be saved on central servers for a reasonable period of time, the functionality should be disabled on all government-issued mobile devices.
The report, Access to Information at Risk from Instant Messaging, presents the findings of a study into the instant messaging practices and policies in 11 federal government departments and ministerial offices. It shows that there isn’t a consistent approach with some having no guidelines at all and others with explicit practices to follow.
“My investigation into the use of wireless devices and instant messaging in 11 federal institutions revealed that there is a real risk that information that should be accessible by requesters is being irremediably deleted or lost. No valid operational requirement was provided to me to justify this risk,” Suzanne Legault, Information Commissioner of Canada writes in the report.
Her investigation was sparked by a complaint launched in August 2012 against Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (then known as Indian and Northern Affairs Canada). In this case, the complainant received an email in which one government official asked another to use a PIN instead of email to communicate. During the investigation, it was revealed that the relevant BlackBerrys had been replaced and destroyed with the information, which may have been fallen within the scope of the request, being permanently lost.
The Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) should bear the brunt of the blame for the current situation, she notes in the report, pointing to current guidelines that require access officials to only ask ministerial offices or government departments “for records when officials have reasonable grounds to believe, based on credible evidence, that records determined to be under the control of the institution would be found.”
In addition, Legault highlights a directive from the TBS instructing access to information officials to “delay” requesting records from ministerial offices until all or most of them had been collected. This may result in information pertinent to an access request never being recovered because instant messages are usually deleted within a month.
New rules proposed by TBS could make matters worse, says the report, noting that “the draft standard instructs institutions to ensure that instant messages are stored on wireless devices ‘for a maximum’ of three days and that messages are not to be automatically backed up on a central server within that short period of time.”
The ban on instant messaging would only be lifted if an individual has an operational need; instant messages are stored on a government server for a reasonable period of time; and users who need instant messaging take training on information management, including signing an agreement to identify and retrieve instant messages.
“Information is the lifeblood of democracy. Loss of information or an infringement on requesters’ right of access should not be quietly accepted simply because the impact of new technologies has not been properly considered. While technology is a powerful tool for innovation, its use must not infringe on the right of requesters to know what government is doing and to hold it accountable for its decisions,” says Legault.
