No peeking! Government records censored with Scotch tape, paper
Raphael Satter, an Associated Press correspondent in Paris, was dumbfounded when he received files from the Public Health Agency of Canada that were censored using only Scotch tape and paper.

thestar.com
May 17, 2016
By Geoffrey Vendeville

When reporters ask government agencies for copies of records, they often get documents so blacked out they look like crossword puzzles.

That’s why Raphael Satter, an Associated Press correspondent in Paris, was dumbfounded when he received files from the Public Health Agency of Canada that were censored using only Scotch tape and paper.

He was able to see the redacted confidential information simply by peeling back the paper.

This was a first, he said, in more than a decade reporting for the AP. He has made access to information requests in about 15 countries, from Norway to Rwanda. “I’ve never seen someone use an arts and crafts method in order to hide information from me,” he told the Star.

A colleague of his, Maria Cheng, an AP medical writer, applied for the documents in August 2015 and got a reply about nine months later. The files were related to the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

Satter posted pictures and video of the improperly censored government documents on Twitter, where they quickly became the envy of journalists everywhere.

“Canadians are so nice,” tweeted Bobby Blanchard, a reporter for the Dallas Morning News.

Satter said the censors’ error revealed private information, including the names of three patients being treated for Ebola in West Africa at the time. He emailed the Office of the Information Commissioner and the Public Health Agency of Canada to notify them of the mistake.

The Public Health Agency is investigating the matter, said spokeswoman Sylwia Krzyszton.

“The protection of personal information is of fundamental importance and we deeply regret that this error occurred,” she said in an email.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the body that advocates for the privacy of Canadians, hasn’t received a breach report about the incident, said Valerie Lawson, a spokeswoman.

“Based on what we’ve seen on Twitter, it clearly raises privacy questions and we will be following up with the organization to find out what happened,” she added, in a statement.

It is rare for government agencies to send journalists uncensored records, according to a recent Star analysis of tens of thousands of access to information requests. Out of all the requests between June 2013 and July 2014, 57 per cent were returned with parts blacked out.

Tom Henheffer, executive director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, has never heard of any redactions being made with tape and paper.

“This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen,” he said. “It must’ve been someone’s first day.”

“It just goes to show how obviously under-funded the system is and there needs to be more investment into it.”

In 2014-15, it cost $67 million to operate the access to information system, while the government collected just $368,000 in fees from applicants.

Treasury Board President Scott Brison unveiled changes to the system this month, which the government said was a first step in a greater overhaul.