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Section 20 - Disclosure harmful to law enforcement

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20(1) The head of a public body may refuse to disclose information to an applicant if the disclosure could reasonably be expected to

(a) harm a law enforcement matter,

(b) prejudice the defence of Canada or of any foreign state allied to or associated with Canada,

(b.1) disclose activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada within the meaning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (Canada),

(c) harm the effectiveness of investigative techniques and procedures currently used, or likely to be used, in law enforcement,

(d) reveal the identity of a confidential source of law enforcement information,

(e) reveal criminal intelligence that has a reasonable connection with the detection, prevention or suppression of organized criminal activities or of serious and repetitive criminal activities,

(f) interfere with or harm an ongoing or unsolved law enforcement investigation, including a police investigation,

(g) reveal any information relating to or used in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion,

(h) deprive a person of the right to a fair trial or impartial adjudication,

(i) reveal a record that has been confiscated from a person by a peace officer in accordance with a law,

(j) facilitate the escape from custody of an individual who is being lawfully detained,

(k) facilitate the commission of an unlawful act or hamper the control of crime,

(l) reveal technical information relating to weapons or potential weapons,

(m) harm the security of any property or system, including a building, a vehicle, a computer system or a communications system, or

(n) reveal information in a correctional record supplied, explicitly or implicitly, in confidence.

(2) Subsection (1)(g) does not apply to information that has been in existence for 10 years or more.

(3) The head of a public body may refuse to disclose information to an applicant if the information

(a) is in a law enforcement record and the disclosure could reasonably be expected to expose to civil liability the author of the record or an individual who has been quoted or paraphrased in the record, or

(b) is about the history, supervision or release of an individual who is under the control or supervision of a correctional authority and the disclosure could reasonably be expected to harm the proper custody or supervision of that person.

(4) The head of a public body must refuse to disclose information to an applicant if the information is in a law enforcement record and the disclosure would be an offence under an Act of Canada.

(5) Subsections (1) and (3) do not apply to

(a) a report prepared in the course of routine inspections by an agency that is authorized to enforce compliance with an Act of Alberta, or

(b) a report, including statistical analysis, on the degree of success achieved in a law enforcement program unless disclosure of the report could reasonably be expected to interfere with or harm any of the matters referred to in subsection (1) or (3).

(6) After a police investigation is completed, the head of a public body may disclose under this section the reasons for a decision not to prosecute

(a) to a person who knew of and was significantly interested in the investigation, including a victim or a relative or friend of a victim, or

(b) to any other member of the public, if the fact of the investigation was made public.

RSA 2000 cF-25 s20;2002 c32 s7

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