TORONTO - Ontario's municipal government institutions can't use technological barriers as an excuse to deny access to information requests made by the public, the province's highest court ruled Tuesday.
  
The case stems from requests made in May 2003 by a Toronto Star reporter under the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, asking for information from the Toronto Police Services Board's electronic databases.

The police board refused, arguing it would have to create new software to extract the information in a way that would not violate privacy concerns. The board claimed that would "unreasonably interfere with the operations of the police."

The reporter, Jim Rankin, took his case to the province's information and privacy commissioner and won, but an appeal before Divisional Court sided with the police board.

On Tuesday, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned the Divisional Court decision, which it said gave government institutions "the ability to evade the public's right of access to information."

"Access would be determined based upon the coincidence of whether the software was already in use, regardless of how easy or inexpensive it would be to develop," the court wrote in its decision.

The police board had argued it didn't have the resources to write new software and fulfil Rankin's request but the court noted that under the act, the party requesting information is responsible for paying those costs.

A lawyer for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which was an intervener in the case, said the decision sends a clear message about the public's right to information from municipal institutions like police services boards, school boards, conservation authorities, boards of health, and transit commissions.

"The court has said forcefully that the legislation should be interpreted to facilitate access to electronically stored information and that access is in the public interest," said Wendy Matheson.

"The court called it a technological reality that government is in the information age, along with everyone else, and it would defeat the public interest if the use of (outdated) computer technology was allowed to be a barrier to accessing information."

Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Ann Cavoukian applauded the ruling, which she called far-reaching.

"(It is) a landmark decision that upholds the principles of openness and transparency as applied to electronic records," Cavoukian said.