Info loophole

Technology is a great thing, and everywhere around us, there is overwhelming evidence of how it has improved our lives. But everything can be abused, and in the case of communications technology, Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault is right to sound the alarm on how instant messaging is being abused by the government.

In her latest report, Legault detailed how the Conservative government is impeding public access to information with the practice of deleting text messages from federal bureaucrats. Instant messages sent by federal employees are usually deleted automatically from BlackBerrys and other wireless devices after 30 days, and often aren’t recoverable because they are not automatically stored on a central server. But Legault said text messaging has become such a part of how the federal government conducts its business that deletion of the messages is undermining public access to information. She calls the problem an “unacceptable risk.”

We know from the Ontario gas plants fiasco and the Senate expense scandal, the importance of keeping electronic communication records, and how the deletion of such information could hinder public inquiries. It is not surprising that Treasury Board Minister Tony Clement has dismissed Legault’s call to disable instant messaging from governmentissued devices. Clearly a government that loves secrecy has found a way to circumvent record-keeping that is required of officials, and it is not going to let go. But if instant messaging is vital and should be kept, the government must ensure there is a backup, and the information cannot be lost even if it is deleted on the wireless devices.