Peel Police Services Board: Concealing the Street Check Records Retention Schedule. Nov 24, 2017

First deputation advising the Peel Police Services Board that Peel Police willfully misled the Board/media/public into believing that street check personal information was held "indefinitely".

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

In my January 2017 deputation, I informed this Board that Peel Police kept blocking my street check related Freedom of Information requests and forcing me into appeal-after-appeal to the Information & Privacy Commissioner.

And boy did you people ever fool me.

I didn’t know until mid-October when I received yet another Freedom of Information Access Denied—this time slapped with a frivolous or vexatious claim—that I finally figured out it wasn’t PRP blocking my street check FOIs but the “Head”—the Chair of this Board.

I now realize that it was the Chair—and this Board—who delegated the Chief’s lawyer, Linda Bordeleau, to fight my appeal and write “we do not see a public interest” in four disputed records in a row.

Well the IPC disagreed, and quite the contrary, ruled that the records had “compelling public interest”.

And Record 4, that secret 2014 Peel Police “Street Check Board Report” that you showed no interest in, revealed all manner of violations—of the Police Services Act, Ontario Municipal Act, Ontario Human Rights Code, Peel Police directives, policies, and code of conduct. Not to mention Board Adequacy Standard Policies, for example, MANAGEMENT OF POLICE RECORDS.

By far the most profound violation revealed in your secret 2014 Peel Police “Street Check Board Report” relates to Records Retention of street check PRP-17s.

On page 16, under the heading “Records Retention”, the secret 2014 report states:

There is a retention schedule for Street Checks and is in the occurrences section #3-02-09-01-01.

"The retention period is:

• No charges - event plus 1 year
• Charges - event plus 5 years
• V Class - event plus 50 years.

Niche is not subject to the retention schedule as the module is not built in to the system to manage retention of records."

Now contrast “No charges - event plus 1 year” with what Chief Evans and then-Inspector Ingrid Berkeley-Brown reported in September 2015.

Regarding Retention of PRP-17s they wrote:

"….These records are typically retained on an indefinite basis unless statutory requirements dictate otherwise. An environmental scan with surrounding police agencies revealed that information collected through their street check processes is also retained indefinitely…"

I immediately filed Freedom of Information for the actual Peel Police Records Retention Schedule just to see the thing with my own eyes.

Summarized from the Peel Police Record Retention Schedule for PRP-17s, page 100.

"Office of Primary Interest? Criminal Investigations Bureau.
When charge(s) laid:

Total: E + 5.
Disposition Method/Instructions: ER/SH
When charge(s) not laid:

Total: E + 1.
Disposition Method/Instructions: ER/SH"

ER means Erase. SH --Shred.

So you-all did your best to keep hidden from the public that Peel Police street check forms and related personal information were not supposed to be “retained indefinitely” as Evans and Berkeley-Brown claimed, but had a precise destruction schedule!

For how many years has the Peel Police covert non-compliance to its PRP-17 street check retention schedule denied tens of thousands of people of their right to be forgotten? The right to service of having their personal information expunged as per existing legislation?

And you-yourselves know what community PRP-17s affect the most.

Chief Evans and Berkeley-Brown said there were 130,024 street check contacts between 2009 through 2014. “Contacts”—that’s PEOPLE carded.

I have no idea how many of those 130,000 had Erase-rights of Event plus 1 year --but can tell you that some who were charged are now past the 5-year retention and should have their PRP-17 information erased!

Regarding the Ministry’s new street check Regulation 58/16, Chief Evans wrote:

“…Peel Regional Police will commence a process to restrict access to the legacy Street Check data…”
Gotta love calling years of non-erased PRP-17s “legacy Street Check data”.

As for “will commence a process to restrict access”?
The majority of the Chief’s almost-200,000 “legacy Street Check data” Should. Not. Exist!

Page 10 in the 2015 “STREET CHECK PROCESS” goes on to lie:

“Currently there is no mandatory requirement necessitating regular review and audit of street check forms within the system.”

There were mandatory requirements —in that Peel Police Records Retention Schedule and in the Board’s MANAGEMENT OF POLICE RECORDS which state:

"…the Chief of Police shall:

b) Ensure members act with full respect for human dignity…

And:

The Chief of Police shall regularly review the collection, security, retention, use, disclosure and destruction of police records as may be required to ensure the integrity of the police service directive and/or procedure."

You bet there were mandatory requirements!