northclare, you are absolutely right. In my day to day work, I deal with FOIP and access to personal information daily, went to tones of Canadian conferences about it. Files are prepared by the officers, not admin staff. Requests are received by Freedom and Access clerks, they interpret the request per se (what is requested and from which department) and then send it to the departments. In the department, it gets on the desk of a supervisor who is then distributing by officers who is holding files. However, copies can be made by admin staff, which is still distracting them from toher work they need to do.
FOIP and Access regulations are very tight in Canada and procedures are clearly outlined by Federal and Provincial governments. All bodies have to follow the procedures and regulations.
Believe me, when requests to access the files come to me, it take tones of my times (even though i am not an admin staff in CIC's equivalent), which I could have used performing my actual duties. I work under provincial regulations but, as I said, rules are nearly identical.
However, I think majority of people don't order FOSS and CAIPS notes. So on a big scale it is not critical.
;D
