(Nicole Reis/ meadowlakeNOW Staff)

By Nicole Reis

Bylaw Review

Council updates bylaws concerning public complaints

Feb 19, 2020 | 1:52 PM

Meadow Lake councillors have updated policy regarding public complaints to reflect privacy concerns when it comes to body cameras, city building cameras, and footage submitted by locals filing a complaint.

The update also formalizes public complaints about city staff members.

City Manager Diana Burton told council, a separate policy is in place for the Community Safety Officer (CSO), who is treated differently under provincial legislation. Complaints or concerns must be sent to the Provincial Complaints Commission where concerns about city workers are undertaken by the city clerk.

“It’s more for the CSO but also the bylaw department because the bylaw department has body cameras and it’s in there as a reminder that we need to be careful about how we are handling that footage and that we are only accessing video footage if we have a complaint,” Burton said to council. “If we are giving out video footage to anybody, other than the person who is in it, we have to make sure we’re altering footage to remove facial data.”

City Clerk Jessica Walters added the separate policy for bylaw enforcement matches the process in council’s code of ethics bylaw which was taken from the provincial template when councils assigned that role to city clerk. There’s already an equivalent duty in the code of ethics bylaw.

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Coun. Richard Levesque highlighted privacy concerns in the bylaw stating It is an offence to willfully collect, attempt to access, access, use or disclose complaints or video and/or images related to the complaint under The Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act for any unauthorized purpose.

Walters’ response offered a hypothetical, where if a resident submitted photos of a neighbour to support a complaint, the city cannot accept it since the footage was obtained without consent.

The update also addresses camera footage obtained on city buildings.

“The local authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act governs us as a local authority as to when we can collect personal information when it deals with the collection, use and the disclosure of personal information,” Burton said.

According to Burton, current legislation indicates anyone can take a picture or video of another resident, however bylaw officers are not able to use footage for bylaw enforcement.

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nicole.reis@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722