Advanced Research & Invention Agency

The complainant submitted a request to the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) seeking information about its “Scoping Our Planet” project. ARIA responded by stating that the did not consider the requested information to be “environmental information” as defined by the EIR albeit it did provide the complainant with some of the information falling within the scope of his request. Following the Commissioner’s view that the requested information was “environmental information”, ARIA disclosed the remaining information it held in the scope of the request, with the exception of a small portion of information withheld on the basis of regulations 12(5)(e) (commercial or industrial information) and 12(5)(f) (interests of the person who provided) of the EIR. The Commissioner’s decision is that the redacted information is exempt from disclosure on the basis of 12(5)(e) of the EIR and that the public interest favours maintaining this exception. However, the Commissioner has concluded that AIRA breached regulation 5(2) of the EIR in not providing the complainant with the remainder of the information in the scope of his request within 20 working days of his request.