Casual Legal: Two acts will replace FOIPPA

DISCLAIMER: This article is meant to provide information to Alberta Municipalities members only and is not intended to provide legal advice. You should seek the advice of legal counsel to address your specific set of circumstances. Although every effort has been made to provide current and accurate information, changes to the law may cause the information in this article to be outdated. This content is not intended for the general public.

By Brad Smith
Reynolds Mirth Richards Farmer LLP
Alberta Municipalities Casual Legal Service Provider

In late 2024, the Legislature passed a pair of bills set to replace Alberta's Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA) with two new acts: the Protection of Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act. Once enacted, the new acts will effectively divide the current FOIPPA regime into two parts and introduce important changes relating to how public bodies, including municipalities, can collect, manage, and make use of personal information, and changes to the rules and processes governing access to information requests.

Protection of Privacy Act

The Protection of Privacy Act aims to strengthen privacy protections and to bring regulation of privacy issues in line with modern technologies and privacy issues. It will require that municipalities and other public bodies:

• Adopt a “privacy by design approach” and consider privacy implications when doing business and when creating or making changes to their programs, services, and systems.
• Notify Albertans when their information is used by automated decision-making systems.
• Notify individuals about privacy breaches where there is a real risk of significant harm.
• Establish and implement privacy management programs.

It will also introduce Privacy Impact Assessments and stricter penalties for any breaches of the act that occur.

Access to Information Act

The Access to Information Act will introduce an updated framework for access to information requests. The overall framework and procedures are largely similar to those under FOIPPA, but the act lengthens the default timeline for responding to requests to 30 business days. It also allows for extensions in certain circumstances, provides the power to disregard certain requests, and also clarifies and expands the categories of documents that can be withheld from mandatory disclosure.

Full details of the new privacy and access to information regime will become clearer once the regulations are released later this spring. In the meantime, municipalities can become familiar with the new legislation.

Although the new acts will provide similar processes and provisions, it is worth noting that with FOIPPA ceasing to exist, many bylaws, agreements, policies, and other documents referring to it will need to be updated. Municipalities can be proactive in this regard by incorporating reference to FOIPPA “or any successor legislation” into new and existing bylaws, agreements, policies, and other documents.

To access Alberta Municipalities Casual Legal Helpline, Alberta Municipalities members can call toll-free to 1-800-661-7673 or casuallegal [at] abmunis.ca (email) to reach the municipal legal experts at Reynolds Mirth Richards and Farmer LLP. For more information on the Casual Legal Service, please call 310-MUNI (6864) or riskcontrol [at] abmunis.ca (email) to connect with Alberta Municipalities Risk Management staff. Any Regular or Associate member of Alberta Municipalities can access the Casual Legal Service.