How many hours each week do Ontario civil servants spend watching pornography, Grey's Anatomy or last night's sports highlights on their office computers?

The provincial government says it's none of your business.

Through its lawyers, the government has spent the better part of a year arguing that taxpayers have no right to know how much time civil servants spend on social media sites, sports and entertainment websites or trying to access websites that show porn or promote “Racism and Hate” or “Drugs.”

The provincial government's IT department regularly monitors the Internet surfing habits of the province's 60,000 bureaucrats and political staffers, and it issues monthly reports on investigations carried out into illicit use. But it refuses to make those reports public.

“Canada's pretty much the worst advanced country that I know of when it comes to access to information,” says Amir Attaran, a University of Ottawa law professor and an expert in access-to-information legislation.

“It's abundantly clear that you're being stonewalled by a government that has secrets to keep.”

The Star first requested the documents, dubbed Information Protection Centre Monthly Reports, in March.

The Ministry of Government Services, currently led by Minister Harinder Takhar, denied the request. An appeal to the office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (IPC) led to an unsuccessful mediation attempt.

The matter is now before an adjudicator with the IPC, an independent provincial body that hears disputes between requesters and government departments over the release of government-held records.

In 2007, the ministry blocked civil servants from accessing social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube as well as inappropriate web content. But sources say many productivity-sucking sites are still openly accessible and that civil servants with enough technical knowledge can find ways of slipping past security measures to access unapproved sites.

In a 17-page submission to the information commissioner's office, the ministry contends that disclosure of the reports “will be highly prejudicial” to its ability to maintain security in its network.

There are as many as 2 million attempts a day to infiltrate the province's computer network, the ministry says in its representations.

“On some days, the attacks on the government network can increase exponentially in the face of a deliberate and sustained effort to infiltrate and disable the network ...

“The disclosure of the records could reasonably be expected to endanger the security of the government's information and information technology infrastructure and network.”

The Star agreed to have any information of potential threat to the government's computer system blocked from release so long as information of public interest — such as improper use of computer systems by government staff, the scope of lost productivity and investigation outcomes — are released.

The ministry declined, saying it was unwilling to make “severances” to the documents. It has denied release of the reports in their entirety.

Large portions of the government's submissions to the information commissioner's office are themselves blacked out so that the Star can't know the full basis of its argument.

In addition to computer network security concerns, the ministry cites a clause in provincial freedom-of-information legislation that removes information related to human resources from being subject to the law.

“This information (on illicit or inappropriate use of computers) often leads to human resource-related decisions such as issuing warnings to all (Ontario Public Service) employees about the appropriate use of (IT) resources, limiting employee access to certain websites or streaming media, and/or developing (IT) related human resource policies to prevent employees from using (IT) resources in a manner that would distract them from effectively fulfilling their employment duties.”

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There are no employee names or personal information listed in the documents, sources have told the Star.

Accessing government records “is probably Canada's weakest point and the one thing that's truly shameful about this country,” Attaran says.

“We cover up. And there's simply no glory or recognizing the person who stands up and says something is wrong.”