Part 1 — What exists
A single police interaction can generate a dozen record types, held in different systems, released through different processes. If you don't name a record type, you will not receive it — requests are answered as written, not as intended.
The core file
- General Occurrence (GO) report — the formal narrative, in layers: front page, narrative(s), entity pages (how you're classified — victim, complainant, suspect), report checklist, approval and clearance pages, attachments list. Ask for "the complete General Occurrence hardcopy including all pages" — a narrative alone is not the file.
- Officer notebook entries — each officer's contemporaneous notes, held per officer. Name every officer and date; otherwise ask for "notebook entries of all officers involved in [occurrence #]."
- CAD event chronology — the dispatch log: when the call came in, unit assignments, timestamps for enroute / on-scene / cleared. Often the only minute-by-minute record, and the one most likely to conflict with narratives written later.
- 911 recordings and radio communications — audio, distinct from the CAD text log. Ask for both explicitly.
- Body-worn and in-car video — almost always a separate application with its own form and fee. Ask first for an index of what footage exists — which officers, which incidents, retention status — then apply for the footage. The index request also fixes, in writing, that the footage existed.
- Witness statements, photos, attachments — listed on the GO checklist but frequently omitted. If the checklist says "attached: yes," the attachment is a record you can demand.
The accountability layer — the part almost nobody requests
- Audit and access logs — who queried your name in the records system, CPIC, or MTO databases, and when.
- Supervisory review and approval records — which supervisor approved the report and its closure coding.
- Internal communications about your file — emails between units, transfers, status decisions.
- Retention and destruction records — whether anything about you was purged, and under what authority.
Part 2 — How to ask
Mechanics. Municipal and regional police: a request under MFIPPA to the service's freedom-of-information unit, $5 fee. OPP: FIPPA, through the ministry. You are requesting your own personal information — a distinct and stronger right than a general records request. Include your full name and date of birth, every occurrence number you have, dates and locations where you don't, and ID.
Ten drafting rules that determine what you get
- 1 · Itemize. Number every record type you want. "All records about me" invites one report and a cover letter; fourteen numbered items require fourteen answers.
- 2 · Ask by layer, not by document. "The complete GO hardcopy including front page, all narratives, entity pages, checklist, approval and clearance pages, and all listed attachments."
- 3 · Demand a three-way answer for anything named in a record: produced, or itemized with the exemption claimed, or confirmed in writing not to exist — with the deletion record if it once existed. This single structure eliminates most silent omissions.
- 4 · Ask for an exemption index. Record-by-record, which exemption applies to what. Blanket citations are a known — and appealable — deficiency.
- 5 · Pre-empt the standard refusals. "Ongoing investigation" — ask for the investigation's status and clearance date in writing. Severed third-party information — cite the absurd-result principle: information you provided, or events you were present for, cannot sensibly be withheld from you as someone else's privacy.
- 6 · Ask whether the public-interest override was considered. The head must turn their mind to it; a decision letter that never mentions it is deficient.
- 7 · Send a preservation request in the same letter. One paragraph: all records relating to you and the listed occurrences — including audit logs, drafts, and communications — to be preserved pending anticipated proceedings. Its date matters enormously later.
- 8 · Request a written decision and note the clock. A non-answer is a "deemed refusal" you can appeal immediately to the IPC — $10 for personal-information appeals, and the process is designed for unrepresented people.
- 9 · Never argue your case in the request. Request records neutrally; save analysis for the venue that decides things.
- 10 · Verify everything against everything. The same event in a notebook, a GO narrative, and a CAD log — with different times or sequences — is not a small thing. Institutional records that contradict each other are the most powerful material in the file, and only a requester holding all three layers can find it.
Expect partial success. Refusals, severances, and "no records exist" answers are normal, and each is appealable. A documented refusal is itself evidence of how the institution handles accountability — nothing about the process is wasted.
Part 3 — Build your own record
The institutional record will be weighed heavily. The answer is not to hope yours is believed — it is to create documentation with the same properties that make police records credible: contemporaneous, dated, specific, and fixed in a form that shows it hasn't changed.
What to write, every time, as soon as possible: date, time, location, and how you know the time · who was present, with contact details · what was said, in order, quoting exact words where you remember them and saying so where you don't ("words to the effect of") · what you did and what they did, in sequence · any instruction you were given ("attend the station," "someone will call you") — the details most likely to conflict with the institutional record later · physical details: injuries, property, weather, vehicle numbers, camera locations.
Fix it in time. Email it to yourself the same day; keep it where timestamps prove when it was made. What to leave out: speculation about motive ("he seemed to decide I was the problem" is argument; "he spoke only to the other party for ten minutes and did not take my statement" is evidence) · other people's unrelated private information · legal conclusions · venting. One discipline above all: never alter an entry after the fact. If you recall something later, write a new dated entry saying so. A supplemented record is credible; an edited one is destroyed. This is exactly the standard officers' notebooks are held to — hold yourself to it and your record stands on equal footing.
Part 4 — Why this matters beyond your case
Access rights are used by a fraction of one percent of the people police interact with. Officers write notebooks and reports, and code files, in the reasonable expectation that the person described will never read them. Every request changes that calculation for one file. Enough requests change it for the system. Documentation produced in the expectation of scrutiny is documentation produced carefully — which is what everyone, including good officers, should want the record to be.
Deadlines in human rights, civil, and complaints processes are strict and short — anyone considering a proceeding should get advice early. Free help: Human Rights Legal Support Centre · community legal clinics via Legal Aid Ontario · the IPC of Ontario for access appeals. See Getting help.