Annual Report to Parliament on the Administration of the Privacy Act April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024

Introduction

The Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC) is pleased to present to Parliament its Annual Report on the Administration of the Privacy Act (the Act). Section 72 of the Act requires the head of every federal government institution to prepare and table an annual report to Parliament on the administration of the Act each financial year. This Report provides an overview of the ATSSC activities in implementing the Act during the fiscal year commencing April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024.

The purpose of the Privacy Act is to protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves held by a government institution and to provide individuals with a right of access to their information. It also protects the privacy of individuals by exercising strict control over the collection, disclosure and use of such information.

The ATSSC is fully committed to both the spirit and the intent of the Act to foster a culture of openness and transparency while ensuring the privacy of individuals with respect to their personal information held by the organization.

This Annual Report is not intended to fulfill reporting requirements for any non-operational (“paper”) subsidiaries of the institution, or any other non-operational institutions.

ATSSC Mandate

ATSSC was established with the coming into force on November 1, 2014, of the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada Act. The ATSSC is responsible for providing support services and facilities to 11 federal administrative tribunals by way of a single, integrated organization. Additionally, the ATSSC provides facilities and administrative support to the National Joint Council and supports the Environmental Protection Tribunal of Canada through a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Environment and Climate Change Canada.

These services include the specialized services required to support the mandate of each tribunal (e.g., registry, research and analysis, legal and other mandate or case activities), as well as internal services (e.g., human resources, financial services, information management and technology, accommodation, security, planning and communications). Through these specialized services, the ATSSC supports improving access to justice for Canadians.

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada is responsible for the ATSSC. The Chief Administrator is the Deputy Head of the ATSSC.

The administrative tribunals supported by the ATSSC include:

Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal (CART)

The CART is an independent administrative tribunal that makes impartial decisions about administrative monetary penalties and warnings imposed for alleged violations of Federal agriculture and agri-food legislation and regulations.

Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB)

The CIRB is an independent, representational and quasi-judicial tribunal. Its mandate is to contribute to, and promote, a harmonious industrial relations climate in the federally regulated sector. It also ensures that federal workplaces comply with health and safety legislation and minimum employment standards.

The CIRB is responsible for interpreting and administering Part I (Industrial Relations) and certain sections of Part II (Occupational Health and Safety), Part III (Standard Hours, Wages, Vacations and Holidays) and Part IV (Administrative Monetary Penalties) of the Code.

The CIRB is also responsible for interpreting and administering Part II (Professional Relations) of the Status of the Artist Act and dealing with appeals under the Wage Earner Protection Program Act.

Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board (CCPERB)

The CCPERB is empowered under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act (the Act) to provide access to justice for applicants seeking review of refused cultural property export permits, as well as to administer provisions of the Act that support the ongoing acquisition, preservation, exchange, and access to cultural property within Canada. It performs a vital function through this work, enhancing Canada’s public collections and contributing to the preservation of cultural property of outstanding significance and/or national importance.

Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT)

The Canadian Human Rights Act protects people from discrimination and ensures equal rights for everyone. It prohibits discrimination based on factors like race, religion, gender, age or disability in federally regulated areas such as workplaces, government services and housing. The CHRT hears appeals about pay equity for employees in the federal sector. With the passing of the Accessible Canada Act, the Tribunal has the role of hearing appeals about barriers to accessibility. The CHRT is also mandated to review directions and assessments made under the Employment Equity Act.

Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT)

The CITT is recognized, in Canada and on the international stage, for its ability to adjudicate trade disputes in a rigorous, fair, transparent and timely fashion. The Tribunal provides Canadian and international businesses decisions and determinations on trade remedy inquiries, federal government procurement inquiries, and customs duties and excise tax appeals. At the request of the Government, the Tribunal can also provide advice in economic and tariff matters.

Competition Tribunal (CT)

The CT is a specialized tribunal that combines expertise in economics and business with expertise in law. The Tribunal is strictly an adjudicative body that operates independently of any government department.

The cases it hears deal with matters such as business mergers; abuse of dominant position; agreements between competitors; refusal to comply; price maintenance; other restrictive trade practices; deceptive marketing practices; specialization agreements; delivered pricing; foreign judgments, law and directives that adversely affect economic activity in Canada; and refusals to supply by foreign suppliers.

Matters before the Tribunal are usually of national interest and large in scope and complexity, and can involve significant financial stakes and directly impact on the competitiveness of private enterprise and industry.

Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board (FPSLREB)

The FPSLREB is an independent quasi-judicial statutory tribunal established by the Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board Act (FPSLREBA), which came into force on November 1, 2014. The FPSLREB is responsible for administering the collective bargaining and grievance adjudication systems in the federal public service and in Parliament. It is also responsible for the resolution of staffing complaints related to internal appointments and layoffs in the federal public service. It can also receive complaints about appointments that were made to comply with an order in a previous FPSLREB decision, as well as revocations of internal appointments.

Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal (PSDPT)

The PSDPT was established in 2007. It is a quasi-judicial body that operates independently from any Canadian federal department. The tribunal was created to enhance public confidence in the integrity of public servants and to protect from reprisals, those who report wrongdoing.

Social Security Tribunal of Canada (SST)

The SST is an independent administrative tribunal that makes decisions on social security appeals. The SST is committed to providing Canadians with an appeal process that’s simple, quick and fair.

The SST hears appeals related to:

• Employment Insurance Benefits

• Canada Pension Plan (CPP) disability benefits

• Other CPP benefits

• Old Age Security and Guaranteed Income Supplement benefits

Specific Claims Tribunal Canada (SCT)

The SCT, established on October 16, 2008, is part of the federal government’s Justice at Last policy and the product of a historic joint initiative with the Assembly of First Nations aimed at accelerating the resolution of specific claims in order to provide justice for First Nations claimants and certainty for government, industry, and all Canadians.

The Tribunal has jurisdiction over claims that are not accepted for negotiation within three years or, if accepted, have been in negotiation for three years without reaching a settlement. Proceedings before the Tribunal are neither an appeal nor a review of the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations’ decision.

Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada (TATC)

The TATC mandate is to conduct independent reviews and appeal hearings on administrative and enforcement actions taken by the Minister of Transport and the Canadian Transportation Agency at the request of affected parties from across Canada’s transportation sectors.

Environmental Protection Tribunal of Canada (EPTC)

The EPTC is a group of expert adjudicators (called Review Officers) who carry out review hearings of Administrative Monetary Penalties and Compliance Orders issued by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) enforcement officers. The EPTC is independent from ECCC and was formerly known as Environmental Protection Review Canada.

National Joint Council (NJC)

The National Joint Council of the Public Service of Canada is the Forum of Choice for co-development, consultation and information sharing between the government as employer and public service bargaining agents.

Through the National Joint Council (NJC), the parties work together to resolve problems and establish terms of employment that apply across the public service. NJC subjects include government travel, relocation, commuting assistance, isolated posts and government housing, foreign service directives, work force adjustment, safety and health, the bilingual bonus and public service health plans.

Organizational Structure

The Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Office is responsible for administering the Privacy Act on behalf of the ATSSC. Its mandate is to ensure compliance with the legislation, regulations and government policy and to create organizational standards and directives relating to the Act. Responsibility for the powers, duties and functions for the administration of the Act has been formally established and is outlined in the Delegation Order for the purpose of the Privacy Act and the Privacy Regulations signed by the ATSSC Chief Administrator (Appendix A – Delegation Order).

At the ATSSC, the Chief Administrator delegates their powers, authorities and responsibilities to:

• the Director General, Corporate Services Branch;

• the Corporate Secretary; and

• the ATIP Manager, Access to Information and Privacy Office.

As ATSSC’s Access to Information and Privacy Coordinator, the Manager of the Access to Information and Privacy Office has delegated authority on matters concerning Access to Information and Privacy. The ATIP Office is part of the Corporate Secretariat, found within the Corporate Services Branch of the organization. It is the central coordinating body for all requests received by ATSSC under the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. The Office consists of one manager and two analysts. The ATIP Office received support services from an ATIP consultant dedicated to privacy activities during this reporting period.

The ATIP Office receives, coordinates and processes requests in accordance with the Act, promotes awareness within the organization and fulfills reporting responsibilities relating to the Act. The ATIP Office also provides expert advice and guidance to senior management and ATSSC staff on matters relating to the application and interpretation of the Act.

The ATSSC has not entered into any service agreements under section 73.1 of the Privacy Act during this reporting period. 

Performance for 2023-2024

This section highlights key information on the Department’s performance for fiscal year 2023-2024. See Appendix B for the complete Statistical Report.

During this reporting period, the ATSSC received a total of 211 formal requests, which is comparable to the previous year (214 requests) (Table 1). This was in addition to the six (6) requests carried forward from the previous fiscal year, for a total of 217 active requests. Of the 217 requests, 216 were completed. As of the last day of the reporting period, there was one (1) request carried forward from fiscal year 2023-2024 to reporting period 2024-2025 that remains within legislative timelines.

The ATSSC responded to 213 formal privacy requests within the legislated timelines which represents 99% of the 216 requests closed in 2023-2024.

The number of requests received over the last few years has grown exponentially, from 15 in fiscal year 2017-2018 to 211 in 2023-2024 (see Table 1 below). This is likely due to the increasing awareness of the ATSSC as an institution, as well as the implementation of the Access to Information and Privacy Online Request Service (AORS) in 2018-2019. This implementation resulted in more requests being submitted online.

The number of pages processed increased, from approximately 209 pages in fiscal year 2016-2017 to almost 3500 pages in fiscal year 2023–2024. We also note that some fiscal years (2018-2019, 2019-2020, 2022-2023) had a substantial increase in pages processed. Much of these increases are attributed to voluminous requests being completed.

Over the last several fiscal years, the ATSSC’s compliance rate for requests completed within legislative timelines has been above 93%. The last three (3) reporting periods netted a compliance rate of 99% while observing an increase in the number of requests received and the number of pages processed.

Training and Awareness

To increase the knowledge and understanding of the Act across the ATSSC, training and awareness sessions were delivered by the ATIP Office.

The ATIP Office regularly provides informal training on the application of ATIP legislation to departmental liaison officers. The liaison officers assist the ATIP Office in producing the requested records and providing insight into the subject matter of the requests.

Employees of the ATSSC completed the Access to Information and Privacy Fundamentals (COR502), offered online by the Canada School of the Public Service. For this initiative, the ATIP Office developed and coordinated an action plan to ensure the ATSSC adheres to the new requirements set out in the Directive on Personal Information Requests and Correction of Personal Information. This resulted in 514 employees completing the course which represents 81% of ATSSC employees. The ATSSC will continue its effort to increase the knowledge and understanding of the Act.

The ATIP Office was an early adopter of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat led next-generation ATIP Request Processing Software Solution. The ATIP Office transitioned from our legacy system to the new software solution (ATIPXpress) and was fully operational by the end of this reporting period. Additionally, the ATIP Office created learning materials and provided training to our liaison officers on the use of the new software.

This reporting period, the ATIP Office has created an internal Identity Verification Manual. This manual provides the necessary process to follow to effectively and consistently validate an individual’s identity when submitting an ATIP request.

Policies, Guidelines, Procedures and Initiatives

The ATSSC is guided by the Treasury Board suite of privacy policy and guidance instruments. During this reporting period, the ATSSC did not implement any new or revised institution-specific policies, guidelines or procedures.

Initiatives and Projects to Improve Privacy

To maintain a high standard of excellence and to continually improve customer service under the Act, the ATIP Office undertook the following initiatives:

• provided responses to 30 requests for privacy advice to various directorates and tribunal secretariats. These responses included privacy advice relating to the review of reports for disclosure, the development of privacy notice statements, and general strengthening of our privacy posture.

• Implemented a new internal streamlined process for record retrieval. Specifically, all ATIP requests regarding the ATSSC’s internal services are sent to the Director General’s Office (DGO) as our Office of Primary Interest (OPI). This new process allows for more efficiency with the retrieval of records and facilitates the request processing.

The ATIP Office has put a considerable amount of effort in creating privacy awareness at the ATSSC through various means as demonstrated above, in addition to meeting with the Director General and executives relating to ATIP processes and current challenges to continue to modernize and refine our operations.

Summary of Key Issues and Actions Taken on Complaints

During this reporting period, the ATSSC did not receive any new complaints pursuant to the Act.

Material Privacy Breaches

A privacy breach refers to the improper or unauthorized access, collection, use, disclosure, retention or disposal of personal information. A material breach involves personal information that could reasonably be expected to cause serious injury or harm to the individual or involves a large number of affected individuals. During this reporting period, no material privacy breaches occurred at the ATSSC. As such, no material privacy breaches were reported to the OPC and the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

Privacy Impact Assessments

Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) are used to identify the potential privacy risks of new or redesigned federal government activities or services. They also help eliminate or reduce those risks to an acceptable level.

During this reporting period, the ATSSC did not complete any PIAs.

Public Interest Disclosures

In accordance with subsection 8(2) of the Act, under certain circumstances a government institution may disclose personal information under its control without the consent of the individual to whom the information relates.

Paragraph 8(2)(m) of the Act states that disclosure of personal information is permitted for any purpose where, in the opinion of the head of the institution, (i) the public interest in disclosure clearly outweighs any invasion of privacy that could result from the disclosure, or (ii) the disclosure would clearly benefit the individual to whom the information relates.

During this reporting period, the ATSSC disclosed personal information in 5 instances under paragraph 8(2)(m) of the Act.

Monitoring Compliance

Appendix A - Privacy Act - Delegation Order

Delegation Order
Access to Information Act and Privacy Act

The Chief Administrator of the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada, pursuant to subsections 95(1) of the Access to Information Act and 73(1) of the Privacy Act, hereby designates the persons holding the positions set out in the schedule hereto, or the persons occupying on an acting basis those positions, to exercise the powers, duties and functions of the Chief Administrator as head of the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada, under the provisions of the Acts and related regulations as specified in the schedule opposite each position.

This designation replaces all previous delegation orders.

Dated, at the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario, this day of , 2024.

______________________________
Orlando Da Silva, LSM
Chief Administrator

Schedule

Powers, duties and functions delegated pursuant to subsections 95(1) of the Access to Information Act and 73(1) of the Privacy Act and related regulations.

Appendix B - Privacy Act - Statistical Report

Statistical Report on the Privacy Act

Name of institution: Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada

Reporting period: 4/1/2023 to 3/31/2024