The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA) provides for the legal right of access to records held by the City of Winnipeg and protects privacy and personal information by limiting the ways that the City can collect, use, and disseminate personal information.

As part of its commitment to greater transparency and accountability, the City of Winnipeg publishes details of applications received for access to records under Part 2 of FIPPA. Responses to the applications are posted unless the application was for personal information, or was abandoned, withdrawn, or transferred.

FIPPA sets out the exclusions and exceptions to disclosure, as well as the other statutes that prevail over FIPPA (http://web2.gov.mb.ca/laws/statutes/ccsm/f175e.php). When an exclusion, exception, or other statute is relied upon to refuse access, the response letter to the applicant includes the section number from the legislation (e.g. section 17 or s.17). The most commonly cited sections are as follows:

s.5 Conflict with another act
s.10 Access to records in electronic form
s.12 Record does not exist or cannot be located; refusal to confirm or deny existence of record
s.13 Public body may disregard certain requests
s.17 Disclosure harmful to a third party's privacy
s.18 Disclosure harmful to a third party's business interests
s.19 Cabinet confidences
s.20 Information provided by another government to department or government agency
s.21 Disclosure harmful to relations between Manitoba and other governments
s.22 Local public body confidences
s.23 Advice to a public body
s.24 Disclosure harmful to individual or public safety
s.25 Disclosure harmful to law enforcement or legal proceedings
s.26 Disclosure harmful to security of property
s.27 Solicitor-client privilege
s.28 Disclosure harmful to economic and other interests of a public body
s.29 Testing procedures, tests and audits
s.29.1 Disclosure harmful to public body’s labour relations
s.29.2 Information relating to workplace investigations
s.30 Confidential evaluations about the applicant
s.31 Disclosure harmful to preservation of heritage resources and life forms
s.32 Information that will be available to the public

Sections 29.1 and 29.2 were added as new exceptions to disclosure as part of the 2022 amendments to FIPPA.