Issue 1: December, 2021

Welcome to the FOI Insider!

This is the inaugural issue of The FOI Insider – a newsletter we have launched to provide our FOI Champions with timely news and updates from the world of Freedom of Information. We will also be including tips to navigating an FOI request in future issues. Please feel free to forward this to your colleagues.

Proposed Amendments to FIPPA

On November 25, a bill containing proposed amendments to the British Columbia Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) received royal assent. Among other things, this bill introduced a new $10 application fee for FOI requests. UBC has still not decided whether to introduce this fee, but if it does, this will probably reduce the number of FOI requests received by UBC. The bill also introduced a new offence for anyone who “wilfully conceals, destroys or alters any record” to avoid complying with an FOI request.

New Retention Schedule for FASmail and MS Teams

As of October 4, 2021 a new 90-day automated data retention schedule has been implemented for certain transitory folders for UBC Faculty and Staff Email (FASmail). Information held in the Deleted Items, Junk Mail and RSS Feeds will be automatically destroyed after the 90^th day. There is also a 90-day retention period for messages contained in Microsoft Teams chat. These retention periods were instituted to comply with UBC Records Management Policies and requirements, reduce digital clutter, and reduce the burden on the FOI team.

Please keep in mind that these folders are meant for transitory conversations. Records that are intended for long-term storage should be saved elsewhere.

Interested in FOI Training?

Have you booked an FOI training session for your business unit and/or team yet? Our office offers a short 30-minute training session on the fundamentals of Freedom of Information requests where you can learn how the FOI process works, what information people are entitled to, and how to ensure you manage your records in a legally compliant manner.

We also offer privacy training and would be happy to tailor training to your specific needs. Please reach out to Suzanne directly discuss your needs and coordinate a training session with your business unit.

Say Farewell to Workspace

Workspace 2.0 was decommissioned on October 29, 2021. Now the preferred UBC file storage solution is OneDrive. To learn more about OneDrive, see here. 

The FOI team uses OneDrive for the collection and dissemination of records for all FOI requests and have created instructions for how to send records to the FOI team. They can be found in the FOI Champions Resources Folder on OneDrive here.