Design Drawings

Principles:

• Drawings and other submitted information is confidential under

  • the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) Act,

  • the Alberta Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), and

  • the Federal Governments Personal Information Protection and Electronics Documents (PIPEDA) Act

• All submitted drawings are confidential between the submitter and ABSA and no copies will be released to a member of the public without the express written consent of the owner of the design unless such release is in accordance with FOIP. Where drawings have originally been submitted by a third party, such as the owner of the vessel, ABSA would not challenge that persons request for a copy of the drawing at a later date. However, owning the boiler or pressure vessel does not confer a right to acquire copies of the drawings from ABSA.

• Records are regulated by the Alberta Governments Records Retention and Disposition Schedule.

Accepted drawing files:

• Accepted drawings for pressure vessels are generally microfilmed. Microfiche is checked and, if the fiche is acceptable, the original drawings are sent to the Records Centre for immediate destruction. Microfiche are kept forever. Microfiche jackets (the holders for the microfilm) are kept off-site at the Government Records Centre.

• Pressure vessel files that are unsuitable to be microfilmed are retained as hard copy files and are sent to the Records Centre for safe storage. There is no destruction date.

• Accepted fitting files are kept as hard copies on site. There are no backup files. They are kept on-site for 10 years and then sent to the Records Centre for storage.

• Piping files are retained as hard copy files and are kept on-site for approximately 2 years and then sent to the Records Centre for storage. Correspondence, AB-96 forms, specifications and line lists are kept for the entire life of the plant. Drawings are destroyed after 10 years.

Providing Copies of Drawings from Files:

• Requests for copies of drawings must be made in writing to the Design Survey Department of ABSA.

• Copies of drawings will only be released to the registered manufacturer unless a letter of authorization for the release of the drawings is provided from the registered manufacturer.

• If a registered manufacturer is believed to be out of business, the requestor must complete a search (corporate registry or other acceptable means) to check if the company may have changed names or if any other company may have purchased the rights to the designs. They would either get an authorization letter from the new owner of the design or send in documentation to prove the company no longer has rights to the design.

• A search fee is applied to this process. The costs of having the prints made and handling costs would also be chargeable to the requestor.

Contact Information:

• Please direct any questions to design@absa.ca
• Edmonton area (780) 437-9100 ext. 3325

Go To Top