Privacy Impact Assessment Summary - Electronic Validation of Citizenship Information with Federal Government Institutions

A Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) was conducted for the implementation of the new electronic validation and disclosure of personal information that validates a document issuance and confirms identity of the certificate holder, held in the citizenship data bank with other federal government institutions. The validation project aims to modernize how CIC communicates information with our partners, to increase program integrity by providing a method of real time validation of citizenship certificate information and to reduce program cost by simplifying internal procedures and lowering operational costs.

Electronic validation of information will begin on February 1, 2012, to coincide with the introduction of a new citizenship certificate. The first departments to receive access to the electronic system will be the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Passport Canada, for passport issuance; and Service Canada, for SIN issuance. Consultations with other Federal, Provincial and Territorial partners are taking place to determine what departments require access to electronic validation of documents.

The privacy analysis found that the implementation of an electronic validation of citizenship information management procedures and policies for personal information are compliant with the Privacy Act, the 10 privacy principles related to personal information, and TBS Policy on Privacy and Data Protection.

CIC has put in place strategies, processes and security measures to:

• protect the information of certificate holders;
•  reduce the likelihood of inadvertent release of information to a third party; and
• protect individuals who hold citizenship status from having their certificate or information used by another person.