1. This policy regulates the main location and safeguarding of the files on former seminarians and governs access to them. There are two types of documents in these files:
   1. General documents; and
   2. Confidential documents.
2. A seminarian who has left formation in the Archdiocese of Vancouver will have his file removed from active filing and stored in the Vocations and Seminarians Office.
3. All documents will be kept with the greatest care and properly secured in the Vocations and Seminarians Office. Documents will be preserved and catalogued according to the professional archival standards stated in section 35 of the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA):
   Retention of personal information
   1. Despite subsection (2), if an organization uses an individual's personal information to make a decision that directly affects the individual, the organization must retain that information for at least one year after using it, so that the individual has a reasonable opportunity to obtain access to it.
   2. An organization must destroy its documents containing personal information, or remove the means by which the personal information can be associated with particular individuals, as soon as it is reasonable to assume that
      1. the purpose for which that personal information was collected is no longer being served by retention of the personal information, and
      2. retention is no longer necessary for legal or business purposes.
4. Access to the former seminarian files is controlled by the Director of the Vocations and Seminarians Office and those to whom he delegates permission.
5. Documents may be taken from the office only for a short time after the authorized person acknowledges receipt in writing pursuant to these standard filing protocols.
6. The destruction of documents shall be carried out after ten years and only by the director or assistant in the Vocations and Seminarians Office.
7. Certain documents will be preserved in perpetuity and moved to the Archives:
   • Internship Evaluations;
   • Legal documents;
   • Letters from the Archbishop;
   • Self-Evaluations;
   • Seminary Faculty Responses; and
   • Other documents that the Vocations Director deems important, for example: safeenvironment violations, etc.

Approved: Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
June 11, 2021

+ J. Michael Miller, CSB
Archbishop of Vancouver