Access to Information Act (R.S., 1985, c. A-1) or Information Act is a Canadian act providing the right of access to information under the control of a government institution. It declares that government information should be available to the public, but with necessary exceptions to the right of access should be limited and specific, and that decisions on the disclosure of any government information should always be reviewed independently of government.
By 1982, twelve countries, including the France, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and the U.S. (1966), had enacted modern ATI legislation. Canada's Access to Information Act came into force in 1983, under the Pierre Trudeau government, permitting Canadians to retrieve information from government files, establishing what information could be accessed, mandating timelines for response. This is enforced by the Information Commissioner of Canada.
There is also a complementary Privacy Act, introduced in 1983. The purpose of the Privacy Act is to extend the present laws of Canada that protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves held by a federal government institution and that provide individuals with a right of access to that information. It is a Crown copyright. Complaints for possible violations of the Act may be reported to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
Canadian access to information laws distinguish between access to records generally and access to records that contain personal information about the person making the request. Subject to exceptions, individuals have a right of access to records that contain their own personal information under the Privacy Act but the general public does not have a right of access to records that contain personal information about others under the Access to Information Act.
From 1989 to 2008, requests made to the federal government were catalogued in the Coordination of Access to Information Requests System.
Read more about Access To Information Act: Proposed Changes
Famous quotes containing the words access to, access, information and/or act:
“The nature of women’s oppression is unique: women are oppressed as women, regardless of class or race; some women have access to significant wealth, but that wealth does not signify power; women are to be found everywhere, but own or control no appreciable territory; women live with those who oppress them, sleep with them, have their children—we are tangled, hopelessly it seems, in the gut of the machinery and way of life which is ruinous to us.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)
“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes—McCarthy and Stalin—that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“I was brought up to believe that the only thing worth doing was to add to the sum of accurate information in the world.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)
“When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)