Can a student, in a FOIP request, gain access to a closed letter of which he or she is the subject of the information?
• Generally yes, since the letter would contain personal opinions about the student. In Order 200-029, the Information and Privacy Commissioner determined that letters of reference written in support of an application for admission to a graduate program should be disclosed because it affected a student’s career opportunities, the student had asked the third parties to write the letters, the third parties may refuse the student’s request, and that the student already knows who the third parties are because they asked the third parties to writer the letters in the first place. The Commissioner also found that the letters contained personal information about the student and the third parties but it would not be an unreasonable invasion of the third parties privacy to disclose their personal information contained in these letters. He also found that the letters did not constitute privileged information and the section 19 (confidential evaluations) could not be applied as all the criteria o
