Policy Brief No. 172 — May 2022 - Third Party Record Exemptions in Canada’s Access to

Following an overview of the purposes of the disclosure of records under the the ATIA, the brief analyzes how the ATIA pertains to control of government, exemptions in and regulates AI and ADM. [...] If the act information commissioner (or then initiates costly is amended to recognize the accountability and time-intensive litigation after this process has value supersedes the transparency value in concluded), it befalls the Government of Canada to certain contexts, such as when it comes to defend the articulated status of the subject matter applications of AI and ADM, the ATIA could vis-à-vis. [...] Second, it could attenuate paragraphs).27 The erasure of potential substantive the risk of competitive harms that would ensue and procedural rights of the requesting parties from absolute transparency, which the current is a design flaw in the ATIA that contributes to system’s default to exemptions is designed to a diminishment of the public interest analysis. [...] The European Union’s proposed Artificial Intelligence Act has a similar The notice system in the ATIA should be reformed mechanism and refers to these supplementary to bolster the involvement of the party requesting records as “conformity assessments.” In the records at all stages. [...] Other examples of non- intellectual property provisions and many other disclosure regularly captivate attention, as in the sections (with even the section names themselves fall of 2021, when a historian at the University redacted) from the procurement contracts for of Toronto revealed his request made pursuant the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines.51 The to the ATIA produced a responsive record.