Access to Information

Accessing Publicly Available Information

Most requests for information received by UBC are for information that is not confidential or sensitive; these are called routine requests. Faculty and staff should make every reasonable effort to respond to routine requests.

Additionally, UBC proactively makes the following information available through our website:

Making Freedom of Information Requests

Requests for records that may contain confidential or sensitive information are called freedom of information (FOI) requests. These requests are processed at the Office of the University Counsel.

There are two types of FOI requests:

  • Personal Requests are requests for records containing the applicant’s own personal information
  • Non-Personal Requests are requests for general records of the University

Personal Requests may be requested for free, but application and partial cost recovery fees are payable for Non-Personal Requests.

Information on previous access to information requests:

Responding to Freedom of Information Searches

For information security reasons, faculty and staff use OneDrive to send their records to the Freedom of Information team. Instructions on how to upload records to OneDrive are available here.

FOI Insider: Newsletter of the FOI Champions Network

The FOI Insider was launched to provide timely news and updates from the world of Freedom of Information as well as provide staff with tips to navigating and FOI requests.