Privacy commissioner advises MLA Hargrave against using personal email for government business

The Saskatchewan Information and Privacy Commissioner has offered advice to former Minister responsible for STC Joe Hargrave after receiving a complaint about him using a private email for political correspondence. 

Saskatoon man Marcus Grundahl filed an official complaint on May 17, 2017, according to a report by privacy commissioner Ron Kruzeniski on March 23, 2018.

The complaint said that on March 5, 2017, Grundahl emailed Hargrave, who is now the Minister of Crowns and SGI, at his saskparty.com email address. 

Hargrave's responded from his personal SaskTel email address rather than his government account. The correspondence continued with another response to the Grundahl from Hargrave's personal email.

"I am concerned the private email address used by the Minister may not be properly recorded in government record, which begs the issue of freedom of information access," Grundahl wrote.

He also cited concerns about whether both saskparty.com and sasktel.net domains have sufficient I.T. protections and about the Minister and his staff continuing to use the sasktel.net address more than once in their back-and-forth.

On May 19, 2017, Hargrave's office was notified that the commissioner would be undertaking an investigation into the complaint, according to the commissioner's report.

Hargrave's office argued that the privacy commissioner's office did not have jurisdiction to consider the allegation.

Hargrave's staff also told the commissioner that at the time of the incident, he had three email accounts on his one Ministerial device and that his political party email was set to forward all emails to his personal email account. They said his phone had a glitch, which caused it to lock up and brought his accounts together.  

Hargrave said he sought IT assistance multiple times to try to resolve the problems and that he eventually removed the other accounts from his phone. 

Commissioner offers advice

On March 23, 2018, the commissioner determined that the Minister's office was not a "government institution" and he therefore had no jurisdiction to investigate the matter. 

Instead, the commissioner offered advice in the form of best practices.

"I recommend the Minister follow best practice and not use his personal/business email address for any government-related activities," the commissioner said. "This would include continuing to ensure there is a clear separation between his personal/business email account and his ministerial and MLA accounts."
 
The commissioner also advised the Minister and his staff to ensure all emails related to government business be moved into government controlled information management systems, then delete the originals from the personal accounts.

When asked about the commissioner's report, a spokesperson for the provincial government provided a statement.

"As noted in the report, Premier Scott Moe has reminded all cabinet ministers about the importance of using government email addresses for all government business. This is the expectation for all ministers. If government business is sent by a member of the public to a personal email account for a minister, that email must be sent on to the minister's government email address. We are also looking into further training opportunities for government staff on best practices for government email use, privacy and data protection," the statement said.

Grundahl, a former STC employee and Roy Romanow staffer, said he was disappointed with the findings but hopes the incident has shed light on elected officials using private emails in Saskatchewan. 

"They should not use personal emails for government business. Effectively, they're not doing job properly if they're using a private email," he said. 

"My hope is that this incident is done and that all MLAs and ministers and government officials are using the proper channels of communication which is government-based correspondence."

Grundahl said he encourages others to make complaints to the commissioner if they come the government using private email accounts improperly. 

Party criticized for private email use

The Sask Party's use of personal emails became a hot political topic in the months following the complaint against Hargrave. 

In June 2017, the privacy commissioner released a report on then-premier Brad Wall, who had been using a personal email account and his saskparty.com account for government business. 

"I strongly encourage government leaders and employees to use the Government of Saskatchewan email system that is supposed by the Ministry of Central Services to do government-related activities," the report said.

In another report that same month, the commissioner made similar statements about board members of the Global Transportation Hub (GTH), who had been using personal email addresses to conduct government-related activities.  

In Oct. 2017, the Sask. NDP brought forth further examples of Wall using a personal account for government business.

That Sask Party government implemented a policy in November 2017 stating government business would be conducted on official government email accounts.