The Commission d’accès à l’information, which is under the authority of the Québec National Assembly, was created in 1982 further to increasing public concern over the issues involved in protecting privacy and providing access to information. From the start of the 70s, this interest in the so-called “new law” showed up gradually in a number of statutes enacted at that time. As early as 1971, with the passage of the Consumer Protection Act, the legislator broke new ground by ensuring all persons right of access to their credit record. Laws governing professions, such as the Professional Code, enshrined principles such as professional secrecy and the confidential nature of personal information.

In enacting the Charter of human rights and freedoms, the Québec National Assembly recognized the right of all persons to respect for their privacy as well as their right to information and, in so doing, took an historic legislative step that would lay the legal foundations for fundamental principles.

Despite these legislative initiatives, several pressure groups demanded specific measures designed to ensure the operational transparency of public bodies through access to information contained in administrative documents, and to better protect Quebecers from the increasing incursion of public authorities into their private lives.
To meet these expectations, the Québec government set up, in 1980, the Commission d’étude sur l’accès du citoyen à l’information gouvernementale et sur la protection des renseignements personnels (the Paré Commission), which had the following mandate: to propose administrative and juridical means of ensuring the public’s right to administrative documents and to privacy, from the standpoint of the protection of personal information. In May 1981, the Paré Commission tabled a report entitled Information et liberté. On the basis of that report, a bill was tabled before the National Assembly; the Act respecting Access to documents held by public bodies and the Protection of personal information was enacted on June 22, 1982, thereby creating the Commission d’accès à l’information du Québec.

During the next decade, the National Assembly continued its efforts to protect privacy by enacting the Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, which came into force on January 1, 1994.