CRTC orders Rogers to disclose redacted details on July outage

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) wants Rogers to share more details on its July 8th outage publicly.

The Toronto-based telecom company filed two responses with the Commission following the outage: the first on July 22nd and the second on August 22nd. However, these responses contained vast amounts of redacted information. In some cases, Rogers blacked out entire pages.

The first response contained six appendices marked as confidential. Rogers disclosed additional information from this response on August 12th, including sharing one of the six appendices. For months, five remained away from public view. The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) argued the move wasn’t appropriate, given Rogers addressed some of the information from these appendices in its responses.

In reply, Rogers said disclosing the files won’t help the public understand the outage or what the company is doing to prevent something similar in the future. The company also said even an abridged version of the documents could lead to security concerns.

Now, the Commission is ordering Rogers to file abridged versions of the confidential appendices. “Rogers is reminded that it is expected to disclose information on the public record to the maximum extent possible, given the immense public interest in understanding the facts surrounding the outage.”

The company also has to file an abridged response to two questions the Commission asked in its second round of questions. Rogers has until March 1st to do so. Parties can ask for additional information associated with Rogers’ response by March 8th, with the company responding to questions by March 15th.

However, Rogers has asked the Commission to extend this deadline to March 8th. The company also suggests that the CRTC push the other two deadlines to March 15th and 23rd.