Information & Ethics committee  If someone wanted from the RCMP all the personal information that their organization has on them, then according to the act, the RCMP have 30 days to provide this information.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, it's not only the RCMP, but the other federal departments. The biggest complaint is the time it takes for them to respond within time limits for requests for access, to requests for—

Information & Ethics committee  There are cases, but I couldn't tell you exactly how many. I can confirm that over the years we have had individuals make numerous—

Information & Ethics committee  It definitely causes a lot of stress to the employees as well as to our managers, because we obviously have to field the questions coming from the complainants as to where their complaint has landed, how come it hasn't been investigated, and where we are with it. This adds quite a bit of stress to the managers and to the investigators.

Information & Ethics committee  One of the reasons is that, for the Privacy Act, most of the respondents are here in Ottawa. The federal organizations are here. It's an act that has been in force since 1983, so the investigators, as well as our legal department, have a lot of case law they can follow. Investigations don't require as much—I don't want to use the word “effort”—expense, let's say.

Information & Ethics committee  As I mentioned earlier, we've hired recently five new investigators, and I'm in the staffing process for seven more. We're reviewing the 691 cases, I believe it is, in the backlog one by one to determine in what way we could prioritize them. We're looking at reviewing all our administrative processes to streamline them, as well as certain operational processes that we believe can be streamlined so as to reduce the delays and reduce the backlog, period.

Information & Ethics committee  With your permission, Mr. Chairman, I might add something there. Historically, we have noticed that when organizations become subject to this legislation, a long learning curve is necessary to implement the policies in order to protect their employees and their clients' information.

Information & Ethics committee  There is the number of employees and the number of personal information they can gather about the people with whom they are dealing. The potential clientele will give us an idea of the number of privacy cases and files.

Information & Ethics committee  Most of them concern time limits, how long it takes a department or an organization to give the service to the individual asking for their personal information. Many of them also concern their refusing access to individuals to their personal information. We have also--

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chairman, at this point today, I can tell you that we have 691 investigations in abeyance. We've opened 1,609 investigations, and we were able to close, last year, 1,287 investigations. The backlog we recognize as a definite problem. We are revisiting the way we do our investigations.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, sir. Last year, I can tell you, we received 1,609 complaints that became investigations.

Information & Ethics committee  I can tell you—and I'm talking about in 2005—1,200 of those complaints were under the Privacy Act and 400 from the private sector under the PIPEDA.

Information & Ethics committee  The greatest number of complaints does not necessarily mean the biggest offenders, but right now we know that the organizations with the greatest number of complaints are the RCMP, the CRA, and I believe the next one is Canada Border Services Agency. The reason is simply that these organizations have the greatest amount of personal information, so it is normal that we'd have the largest number of people asking for their personal information from these organizations.

Information & Ethics committee  The circumstances would dictate whether or not there was a breach. It's based on what, that they used this person's name? I take it there would be no consent, but we'd have to look at the circumstances. But it could very well be. It's a very good question.

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chair, the problem is that the investigation as well as the findings are confidential. If the individual who made the complaint and receives the findings agrees that he's willing to disclose the results of the investigation, that's a right he has, but our office cannot do that.