Calls claim of confidentiality for certain things “ridiculous on its face”
OTTAWA – Consumer advocacy group the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) today filed a request with the CRTC asking for the disclosure of additional information from the documents Rogers Communications filed with it in relation to the company’s nationwide outage last month.
“PIAC submits that Rogers’ response has excessively redacted critical information that the public requires to understand what occurred during the outage and how Rogers plans to mitigate future risks and harms – and to make consumer choices based on these answers and otherwise protect their consumer interest,” the request, a copy of which was obtained by Cartt.ca, reads.
Among the information PIAC wants made public is the full, detailed timeline Rogers submitted of the outage and recovery, arguing it is important so affected customers can “corroborate and understand how they were impacted by the outage, and to seek clarification and compensation accordingly.”
The full timeline is “a key element to any public investigation and inquiry into the outage,” PIAC says. “It will be the backbone of any evaluation of the efforts made by Rogers and the sequence of steps taken. This will reveal the choices Rogers made and may support conclusions regarding what Rogers chose to prioritize and why and whether those choices appropriately protected customers rather than, say, coveted enterprise customers.”
PIAC is further requesting information about what measures have been taken since the company’s April 2021 outage to improve the resiliency of its wireless network and the immediate, short- and medium-term actions items it has developed to prevent another outage.
“Particularly critical to disclose are Rogers’ processes of updating networks and restoring service, as well as Rogers’ plans to improve network resiliency and operations,” PIAC says, arguing it is in the public interest for enough information to be made available to determine whether Rogers’ procedures are adequate.
“In PIAC’s view, once Rogers experienced two outages based on faulty software/hardware upgrades, they forfeit the right to keep their upgrade program private and free from scrutiny,” the request for disclosure reads.
PIAC has also asked for the list of customer communications relayed during and after the outage be made public as it is information that is already public. “To hide from the public the list and content of messages intended for the public is ridiculous on its face,” PIAC argues. “The Commission must order disclosure of these messages and should keep in mind the level of over-redaction that such a confidentiality claim betrays.”
In addition, PIAC is seeking more information about the impact of the outage on emergency services. “The public interest in disclosing the full extent of the impact on and Rogers’ actions to restore access to emergency services far outweighs any specific direct harm that would flow to Rogers,” PIAC argues.
Specific information PIAC is requesting in this realm includes numbers relating to 911 calls placed across Rogers’ network and the number of 911 calls that were not completed due to the outage (including a breakdown by province and platform).
PIAC further wants details on the root cause analysis from both the July 2022 and April 2021 outages to be made public, arguing “Rogers has made the root causes of both of these incidents a matter of public representation and concern, and has effectively waived confidentiality by seeking to characterize the relationship between the outages.” (Rogers has stated publicly the outages were not similar.)
As per a letter from the CRTC to PIAC, today was the deadline for requests for additional disclosure to be made and Rogers has until Aug. 12 to respond.
