(BEN BULMER / iNFOnews.ca)

BC's privacy commissioner has ordered the City of Vernon to hand over a cache of records for free after it tried to charge almost $2,200 for them.

According to an Aug. 15 Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC order, an unnamed party applied to the City to obtain copies of maintenance records, reports and repair costs for the Vernon Recreation Centre and other city-owned facilities.

However, the City said the records would cost $2,223 and it would need a 50% deposit before starting to dig them out.

Clearly unhappy, the issue was taken to BC's Privacy Commissioner to review the case.

The Privacy Commissioners Order didn't name the party who wanted the records or give any indication of why they would want them.

The Order said the request involved 2,555 pages of reports.

The City argued it was following standard procedure in charging the four-figure amount and that the request didn't fall under BC Freedom of Information laws which would have likely made the request much cheaper.

The Privacy Commissioner dismissed the argument but gave the City another opportunity to prove its point.

"The City declined," read the order.

The Privacy Commissioner then asked the city to justify the cost.

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The City only did this after a second request from the Privacy Commissioner and dropped the price.

It said it would cost $30 an hour for 11 hours, plus 10 cents each for the 2,555 to be scanned, or 25 cents if the records were photocopied.

The total price would be $968 for photocopies or $585 for scanned documents.

Again, the Privacy Commissioner didn't buy it.

"The City has provided nothing to support its estimation of 14 hours as the staff time required to locate and produce the record. It has provided no basis for its precise estimate of 2,555 pages of records. It has provided the estimates without any rationale or explanation as to the information upon which it based them," the Privacy Commissioner said.

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The Privacy Commissioner said it had failed to prove its fee was accurate or reasonable.

"Nor has it provided me with any information upon which I could devise an accurate or reasonable fee."

The Commissioner reiterated it gave the City two opportunities to explain, but it didn't.

As it had no basis for what a reasonable charge would be, the Commissioner ordered the City of Vernon to hand over the records for free.

It has until Sept. 27 to do so.

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