Recent Decision Reduces Burden On Companies Responding To Employee PIPEDA Requests

The recent Federal Court of Canada decision in Johnson v. Bell Canada is likely to reduce the burden experienced by Canadian companies when faced with employee requests under the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) for access to personal information allegedly stored on company servers.

In this case, Johnson, a Bell Canada employee, asked Bell for copies of any "e-mails concerning me in this company ... from all sources." He subsequently narrowed his request for access to e-mails from a two-year period. Bell provided all business-related e-mails to which Johnson's direct supervisor had access — close to 600 pages of information.

Johnson asserted that this disclosure was insufficient and sought a court order requiring Bell to provide him with all of his personal information, including all e-mail messages between Bell employees referring to him. He also argued that Bell was obliged to conduct an exhaustive search of all records they