A journalist asked the ministry for a record listing each complaint filed against a police officer to the Complaints Director of the Law Enforcement Complaints Agency during an 11-year period. The journalist did not want aggregate information, but rather, several details about each complaint (such as the police’s officer’s name and badge number, the police service where they were employed, the seriousness of the allegation, and the status of the complaint). The ministry responded to the request and produced a spreadsheet about 40,000 lines long. The ministry disclosed all information in the record except the names and badge numbers of the police officers who had been complained about. The ministry said that it had to protect another person’s personal information (section 21(1)).
The adjudicator agreed that the names and badge numbers are personal information and should not be shared for that reason. She considered the journalist’s view that it is in the public interest (section 23) to disclose the names and badge numbers anyway, but she was not persuaded of that. As a result, she agrees with the ministry’s decision to withhold the names and badge numbers in the spreadsheet.