Public Service Staffing Program
Description
The Assistant Deputy Minister Human Resources Civilian Branch (ADM(HR-Civ)) of the Department of National Defence (DND) is responsible for supporting Sub-delegated managers with the department. For public service staffing, ADM(HR-Civ) supports Hiring Managers at the onset of recruiting personnel, including the development of Statements of Merit Criteria, creating job posters, ensuring the staffing process remains consistent with legal and policy requirements, and a myriad of other related operational staffing support services. These activities result in human resources (HR) professionals supporting all public service recruitment and staffing activities, which includes solicited and unsolicited applications for employment of various tenures (term, casual, student, indeterminate), as well as the management of recourse (a candidate’s ability to complain about a staffing process). These HR activities result in the collection of personal information on external candidates (individuals unknown to DND) and internal candidates, which requires ADM(HR-Civ) to ensure proper safeguards are utilized.
ADM(HR-Civ) also supports personal information collection through job fairs, internal promotions and acting assignments. Furthermore, data collection activities during a staffing action support peripheral DND programs and activities, such as second language evaluations, pay, benefits, pension, security screening, and building access control.
Within the Staffing Program, the general processes and activities involving the collection, use, disclosure, and retention of personal information have been, for the most part, unchanged in the last decade. The two most impactful changes to how staffing is processed has been the migration from paper staffing files to electronic staffing files and the use of a digital recruitment platform offered by VidCruiter (Canadian-based vendor).
Outside of these two changes, the general privacy practices of staffing within the Department have remained relatively unchanged. The department relies on GCJobs (a web service managed by the Public Service Commission) to publicly post job opportunities. Interested candidates, internal and external, submit interest by creating a GCJobs account and submitting personal information through the GCJobs website. Once submitted, ADM(HR-Civ) employee download candidate information from a dedicated PSC system and store those files in a dedicated repository. Subsequently, the staffing processes follow PSC guidelines related to exams, interviews, references, and hiring.
Why a privacy impact assessment was completed
A Privacy impact Assessment (PIA) on the Staffing Program has never been authored. While no specific risks or modifications to the program were present to trigger the necessity for a PIA, the department desired a PIA on the program to ensure DND is adhering to the safeguards within the Privacy Act and Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) privacy policies and directive.
Additional information
The PIA identified a number of risks and corresponding mitigation activities which will see timely improvements to collection practices, transparency to candidates, system monitoring, retention, and security. Senior managers within ADM(HR-Civ) reviewed the risks and have established a fulsome action plan which will fully mitigate all risks within the current fiscal year. All mitigation actions aim to address and manage privacy concerns effectively, ensuring that all updates and changes to the Staffing Program maintain high standards of privacy protection.
Related personal information banks
Standard PIB PSE 902 (Staffing)
Standard PIB PSU 911 (Applications for Employment)
DND PIB PPE 805 (Human Resources Management System)
For more information about this privacy impact assessment
DND/CAF Directorate of Access to Information and Privacy
Email: ATIP-AIPRP@forces.gc.ca
Telephone: 613-901-6720
Online request: Access to information and Privacy online request