The City Directed Me to Delete an Email. Then Said It Was Voluntary.

Why did the City of Kamloops send me a “Direction to Delete Record” and afterwards clarify it was only a voluntary request?

On September 15, I got an email from Stephanie Nichols, the City's Privacy Officer, with the subject “Direction to Delete Record Containing Personal Information.”

Nichols said Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson disclosed sensitive personal information that he wasn't authorized to disclose when he sent me an email a couple days earlier. She said the City determined the disclosure was a privacy breach and would be reporting it to the B.C. Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC).

She then told me to delete the Mayor's email and confirm I had done so by 4 p.m. September 17. She also referred to sections 73.1 and 73.2 of B.C.'s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.

I asked Nichols to clarify the legal authority for the request.

She replied that her email was “seeking voluntary compliance” and that “A Section 73.1 Notice has not yet been issued.”

I've included screenshots of both emails I received from Nichols.

What changed?

Section 73.1 gives the City a process for seeking the return or destruction of personal information that is in someone's possession when they aren't authorized to have it. A formal notice gives the recipient 20 calendar days to respond, while section 73.2 provides a potential court process if the recipient doesn't comply with such a notice.

Nichols has now confirmed that no section 73.1 notice was issued.

So the first email was not a formal notice. It was a request for voluntary compliance.

My question is: why was the request presented as a “Direction to Delete Record,” given a deadline, accompanied by a reference to possible legal action and sections 73.1 and 73.2, if it wasn't a section 73.1 notice?

I'm not suggesting the City has no authority to ask me to delete the record. I'm asking what authority and decision-making process it relied upon.

What was in the email?

The email from the Mayor was about the heated exchange between Councillor Bill Sarai and the Mayor that occurred on January 20, 2023.

It also included a January 25, 2023 email from then-CAO David Trawin to all the council members. In it, Trawin stated that, as a result of the investigation into that incident, an employee had to be moved to another building. He also said a copy of the investigation would be provided to the email recipients later that week.

This raises some questions.

The Honcharuk investigation came after the January 2023 incident and employee move, so I don't want to assume that the investigations were the same or that one caused the other.

Those questions will have to wait for a bit. For now, the immediate issue is that the City asked me to delete a record and then clarified that the request was voluntary.

I'm preserving the record

I have not deleted the Mayor's email or its attachments.

After Nichols clarified that no section 73.1 notice had been issued, I told her I would preserve the records in their present form pending further correspondence.

Preserving a record isn't the same as publishing its contents. I have no intention of publishing the employee's personal information.

But if the City's request becomes the subject of an FOI review, legal proceeding or further investigation, the original correspondence needs to remain available.

I've filed an FOI request

I've also filed an FOI request asking the City for records behind its decision.

The request covers the City's assessment of the alleged privacy breach, the decision to seek voluntary deletion, the authority relied upon, any consideration of issuing a formal section 73.1 notice, communications with the OIPC and the City's decision-making surrounding the September 15 email from Nichols.

I'm also asking the City to identify precisely what records it believed were covered by its request.

I can only speculate about that. It may be related to the employee who was moved. But the Mayor has previously been challenged over his disclosure of communications with Trawin, so there may be a different concern.

I'd rather find out than speculate.

What happens next?

The City may have a straightforward explanation for why the September 15 email was written as it was. If so, the records should show it.

I don't want to tell you what to make of this exchange. The City's two emails say what they say, and I've included them so you can read them for yourself.

I've asked the City for the records behind its decision.

Now we wait to see what they show.