Peel Police Didn’t Release Classified Documents Linked to Brampton MPP Bid

Published May 17, 2018 at 8:45 pm

Police documents – linked to the Brampton Centre MPP bid – weren’t leaked by local officers or civilian employees, say Peel police.

Police documents – linked to the Brampton Centre MPP bid – weren’t leaked by local officers or civilian employees, say Peel police.

An internal investigation has wrapped after a pair of Brampton city councillors received envelopes in the mail which contained police reports – that weren’t authorized for release to the public – back on April 19.

Police say they were notified of the breach on April 21 and the 22 Division criminal investigation bureau began to probe.

“The investigation revealed that the documents in question were not accessed, or sent by any employee of the Peel Regional Police,” reads a news release issued on May 17.

Documents were accessed through the Police Information Portal (PIP), which is a secure records management system maintained by the RCMP.

PIP is accessible to all Canadian law enforcement agencies for the purpose of information-sharing.

“It was determined that a member of the Toronto Police Service accessed the Peel reports through the PIP system,” the news release reads.

The Toronto Police Service Professional Standards Bureau has taken over the investigation.    

The documents in question are linked to last month’s Brampton Centre MPP nomination and a Conservative candidate’s alleged history of drug possession.

The candidate was disqualified by the Tories just before the nomination meeting.

The nomination was secured by Harjit Jaswal.

But the province’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner has already begun investigating two files involving “potential privacy breaches by police services in Peel and Toronto. The first involved the alleged unauthorized disclosure of police documents by a member of the Peel Regional Police. The other involved the apparent unauthorized release of a CCTV image by a member of the Toronto Police Service,” said Ontario Information and Privacy Commissioner Brian Beamish on May 9.

Media reports prompted the IPC investigation.

“The investigation may result in a report with recommendations from our office with regards to their privacy and information management practices,” an IPC spokesperson told insauga.com.

If a report is created at the end of the investigation, it will be made public.

“Municipal police services in Ontario are subject to provincial access and privacy laws. When we receive a complaint or information that there has been a privacy breach, they are subject to a possible investigation as any other public institution would be.”
 

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