Saskatchewan’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has concluded that officers from the Saskatoon Police Service (SPS) improperly accessed investigation files without the requisite authorization. The privacy breach, which was discovered on Monday, involved three police officers who viewed sensitive investigation records of nine individuals for personal motives, potentially jeopardizing ongoing investigations. According to an official report, one officer accessed the personal information of five individuals, queried addresses, used another officer’s credentials to access the Records Management System (RMS), and printed pages from a specific file. Two additional officers viewed information on a single individual that included names, criminal history details, license plate numbers, and other investigation-related information.
This conduct is in violation of Section 16 of the Access to Information Act, which governs exemptions relating to law enforcement investigations, as well as Section 28(1) of the Saskatchewan Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which mandates the proper use and protection of personal information by local authorities including municipal police services.
The investigation was prompted by a request from the Superintendent of SPS for an audit by the Access and Privacy Unit. This audit aimed to detect any unauthorized access to certain investigation files from the previous year. Commissioner Ron Kruzeniski is now seeking written assurances from the involved officers that they did not disseminate the sensitive information accessed.
This circumstance mirrors a recent situation in British Columbia, where five police officers challenged an investigation into racist and pornographic messages exchanged on WhatsApp. Concurrently, the Ottawa Police Service faces a lawsuit for allegedly wiretapping five Black officers, and a recent report by British Columbia’s Human Rights Commissioner has highlighted systemic inequalities within the province.