Technical hurdles: email & payment

[Jennifer Bell]

Hi everyone,

As everyone here knows, there are two key differences between the
Canadian Access to Information System and the ones in the US and the
UK:

1. Canada doesn't currently accept emails
2. Canada has a per request fee

I'm sure there are solutions for both of these issues. I will be
trying to set up a meeting with the treasury board division head for
the Access to Information system to see how flexable they are.
Absolute worst case, when sending requests, the site can use a service
like CanadaPost SmartFlow, to automate outgoing mail:

http://www.canadapost.ca/business/campaigns/smartflow/main/send-e.asp

Or this one, which looks like it might be cheaper:

http://www.l-mail.com/


Jennifer

[Jennifer Bell]

Another worst case option for request and response communication is to
use a email-to-fax / fax-to-email service, potentially incorporating
text recognition software (OCR) to process the response:

http://www.soho.ca/benefits/srFax.htm

Still working on the meeting with the Treasury Board,

Jennifer

[scotts...@gmail.com]

It was a coup to get some governments to have a form that can be
altered with type, printed and then mailed. The City of Calgary has a
pdf form that can only be filled out by hand.

The incentive to allow for easier requests is quite low for some
public bodies.

Having an e-mail and e-payment ability would be fantastic.

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[Jennifer Bell]

I've received an email from someone representing the CIO of the
Treasury Board saying that the Government of Canada has no plans to
support receiving AtoI requests by email. The letter stressed that
there are 250 AtoI bodies, each of which manages their own individual
AtoI response systems, with differing methodologies and technologies.

I asked if they could prepare a statement to that effect that can be
posted here. I also asked if, in general, the agencies supported
receiving requests and request payments via fax, and sending responses
by fax.

Sending an electronically generated fax request that includes a cheque
for the $5 fee is a real possibility. It also may be possible to
accurately route responses received via fax using optical character
recognition to decode a tracking number on the cover page. While
more complicated than it should be, the concept appeals to me because
it removes the risk of accidentally exposing redacted information (see
previous thread).

There's some evidence that the responses could be routed reliably
here:

http://groups.google.com/group/get-theinfo/browse_thread/thread/a05f716f5e932489

Jennifer Bell

[Jennifer Bell]

Good news: L-Mail is currently looking into pricing for having their
Canadian affiliate send on-demand MICR checks.

http://www.l-mail.com/

If that's possible, a reasonable solution might be:

1. Requests are sent via L-Mail with a packet that includes: the
request, a cheque, and a fax cover letter for the response.

2. Responses are received via fax-to-email at a central fax number.
Text recognition is done on the cover letter of the incoming response
email in order to send a response notification to the correct user.

If this works, tracking tools could be implemented without having any
of the Access to Information bureaus change their current process in
any way. A downside is the increase in per-request price from using
the L-Mail service... but then you save the expense and hassle of
printing the form, writing a cheque, and mailing the request.

If the govt. at some point in the future decides to support receiving
e-payments and/or responding by email, we can simply tweak the sending/
receiving part of the process.

Jennifer

[Jennifer Bell]

Hey all,

I've been concerned that the fax solution for receiving responses and
routing them via OCR might be too complicated a solution for the
problem at hand. Also, people do seem to ocasionally receive
information via mailed CDs, and mailed responses are not tracked by
the system. Another design possibility which would take into account
the option for the govt. to reply by mail is:

- send weekly emails to requesters with a summary of outstanding
requests
- if there are < 10 outstanding requests, for each request provide a
secure link to the site which says 'I received a reply to this'
- this link takes you to the website where you can fill in the
details of the response - for instance, whether it was a reply, or a
request for further fees, or a refusal
- if you have more than 10 outstanding requests, you can see your
statistics, and you are given a link to go to the site to update your
requests
- when someone indicates they have received a response, an email is
sent to the associated govt. department telling them the total
completion time for the response. They have an option to dispute the
time.

The problem with this option is that statistics will become innacurate
if some people never go to the site to say that they've received the
response, even if they're being nagged. It may be a problem that
people send the request using a junk email/paypal address, which they
never use again.

As a user, would weekly nagging emails be annoying? It may be a
benefit, as an occaisional reminder of what's outstaning.

By the way: I spoke yesterday to a reporter who files a large number
of AtoI requests (thanks for the tip, Scott!), and he gave me the
contact information of several other people who file 500-600 requests
per year. Hopefully, we'll have a few other users joining this group
shortly.

Jennifer

[Jennifer Bell]

Regarding the 'reminder prompt' email, which would remind people to
update their tracked requests if a response has been received by
mail: the person I spoke to yesterday who files 500 AtoI requests/
year also said that, if the system worked, the 'reminder to update'
email wouldn't be neccessary, since he would spend a lot of time on
the site anyway.

This is a good point - the weekly reminder would be more for
infrequent users, to get them to come back to the site to update it.
It would be a natural thing to only send the reminder prompt email if
the user hadn't been to the site that week.

Jennifer