Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act request

​The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, RSA 2000, Chapter F-25 (often referred to as the FOIP Act) is a provincial Act that applies to all public bodies in the province of Alberta. 

It has five purposes:

1. A right of access to records held by a public body, subject to limited and specific exceptions.
2. A right of access to one’s own personal information held by a public body.
3. A right to request the correction of one’s personal information held by a public body.
4. The protection of personal information held by a public body.
5. Independent review of a public body’s decisions by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner.

This means anyone has a right to ask for any information held by the Calgary Police Service (CPS), who must then collect responsive records and determine if you are entitled to receive them.

Submitting an Access Request

While all access requests must be submitted in writing, there is no prescribed form for submitting an access request. An access request may be submitted via email, fax or letter. Alternatively, each District Office front counter and the Headquarters correspondence counter can provide a form for you to use to submit a request. When submitting an access request, you must provide:

1. your name,
2. current address
3. and a telephone number or email address where you can be reached during the day.

If you are requesting your personal information, you must supply your date of birth. We require you to provide enough information (dates / times / locations etc.) to be able to identify what records you are looking for. If we are unsure we will contact you to clarify your request. Any request for non-personal information must be accompanied by a cheque for $25, payable to the Calgary Police Service, before the request will be processed. In addition, the FOIP Act prescribes a fee schedule that we may charge for both personal and general information but if any, or further fees will be required you will be contacted by a disclosure analyst prior to the request being processed to ensure you accept the fee estimate. 

If you would like to receive your records via email, fax or mail, we recommend you submit a copy of government-issued photo identification so that we can verify your identity. You can expect to be contacted by the disclosure analyst who will be processing your request, if the request needs to be clarified or the disclosure analyst requires further information from you. They will also contact you via your preferred method of communication, once your records are ready. 

How long will it take for you to respond to my Access Request? Under the FOIP Act, we have up to 30 days to respond to your request; we may extend that time if the request is particularly complex or involves an extremely large number of records. We receive several access requests every day, all of which are urgent to the applicant submitting them. For this reason we cannot speed up the disclosure process to accommodate a court date, although we will do our best to provide your records as quickly as possible. 

What requests are not processed by the Access & Privacy section?

1. Requests for collision reports: These are processed by the CPS Correspondence Unit​. Upon payment, a driver or registered owner of a vehicle involved in an accident (or their lawyer or insurance company) will receive a copy of the police report, drivers’ statements and any witness statements where the witness has indicated a willingness to have their statement provided to the drivers.
2. Media requests for information: Although members of the media have the right to request information through the Access & Privacy section, often their inquiries (which are complex) can be best facilitated through the CPS Public Affairs / Media Relations section.
3. Request for a police information check (security clearance): These are a processed through the CPS Police Information Check.