Gathering information to better meet the needs of newcomers to Canada

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) helps immigrants, including refugees, to settle in Canada. To do this, we fund organizations across the country to provide newcomers with services such as language training and career counselling. To make sure newcomers get the right services, we need your help.

The CIC-funded organization that provides you with these services will ask you to give certain personal information: your full name, date of birth, and immigration number or immigration document. We urge you to provide this information when requested.

Your service provider organization gives this information to CIC. During this process, we keep your information confidential. Your personal information will not be used for any other purpose without your consent. You have the right to ask your service provider to show you this information at any time.

Why CIC collects personal information

CIC collects personal information to better understand newcomers’ needs. With this information, we can ensure that service provider organizations are performing well, decide how we can improve the services we fund, and report to the public about how our programs are working. To accomplish all this, we combine your information about the services you need and the services you have used with the details you provided when you applied to come to Canada.

Service provider organizations use this information to help plan and manage our programs and the services provided to you. So, your information helps us ensure that the services fit your needs.

Your personal information is protected

While CIC has the authority to collect your personal information under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, Canadian privacy law requires that the federal government protect your personal information. Your information cannot be shared except as allowed in the Privacy Act.

The personal information you provide is stored in a personal information bank, a type of database, called Settlement and Integration Services. It also contains some information that you provided when you applied to come to Canada. This bank is owned by the Government of Canada. Learn about the kinds of personal information held in the Settlement and Integration Services bank (PIB # CIC PPU 062).

You can access your CIC record of personal information by making an access-to-information request or a Privacy Act request.

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