The province’s privacy commissioner has found that the Department of Justice failed to meet its statutory responsibilities under Access to Information legislation following a request for video recordings of an incident outside the lockup in St. John’s.
The complainant made a request under Access to Information on March 4 of 2024 for access to a video recording of an incident described as having happened “outside the lockup” on February 15.
The RNC transferred the request to the Department of Justice on March 5, and it was on April 12, more than one month later, that the department requested that the Superintendent of Prisons at HMP conduct a search for the February 15 video.
The Superintendent advised that video recordings are kept for a period of 30 days and the video in question no longer existed.
The complainant filed a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner after being told by the Department of Justice on April 24 indicating that no responsive records existed.
The department says it was not able to respond to the request until April 12 because of an increase in active access requests, and HMP staff were not aware of the request before the server automatically overwrote the files after 30 days from recording.
Acting commissioner Jacqueline Lake Kavanagh says that is common practice and she recommends that the Department identify and familiarize itself with timelines and schedules for automatic deletion.