CIMM – Digital Platform Modernization – March 24, 2022
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Key Messages
- The digital modernization of our immigration system will ensure that Canada remains a destination of choice for global talent.
- Over the next five years, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship (IRCC) will replace its aging IT platform and introduce new data and technological capabilities, enabling us to:
- meet heightened expectations for client-focused services and improve the client experience;
- respond quickly to changing conditions and new priorities;
- reduce the reliance on outdated paper-based processes; and
- better manage increasing application volumes while maintaining the integrity of migration programs.
- While new IT capabilities are key, digital modernization is more than a technical upgrade. Rather, we are undertaking a business transformation journey to bring IRCC into the digital era and revolutionize the way we deliver services.
- IRCC knows that public confidence in a technology-enabled immigration system will depend on safeguards to protect against unintended bias and discrimination, and in ensuring accessibility for a diverse client population.
- We are committed to embedding the principles of diversity, equity and anti-racism into our modernization journey.
- We are also committed to ensuring that digitization does not limit accessibility for persons with disabilities.
Supplementary Messages
- The modernization of IRCC’s IT platform and business systems is expected to benefit our diverse client base, including by providing a user experience that is easier and more transparent.
- IRCC continually strives to improve the quality of both officer decisions and any data-driven tools that are implemented to assist or support officers.
- Achieving fairness and consistency in decision-making involves awareness raising, data governance, policy advice, project oversight, quality assurance, public transparency, and so on.
- As we embark on the planning and design stage of Digital Platform Modernization (DPM) programme IRCC is applying an intersectional approach (i.e. anti-racism and gender-based analytical lenses) to its work. This will help ensure that the future-state system reflects equity principles from the outset.
- Among other things, this work includes taking action to prevent unintended bias and discrimination, such as when considering the use of data-driven technologies in support of decision-making.
- As well, inclusion, equity, and diversity principles will be included in the procurement process to ensure that vendors hired by IRCC uphold these principles.
- This work will also include identifying barriers that some populations may face with respect to accessing a digital-first system, whether due to language, technology, or accessibility factors.
Advanced analytics and preventing unintended bias in automated decision-making
- Within the Government of Canada, IRCC was an early adopter of both data analytics and an established set of institutional ethics to guide the responsible use of these tools. This experience is informing the Department’s work on digital modernization.
- IRCC actively participated in the development of the Treasury Board Secretariat’s Directive on Automated Decision-Making and is committed to public transparency in this area where, understandably, stakeholder interest for outcomes is high.
- Rules used by IRCC’s automated decision systems go through an extensive review process for potential discriminatory impacts.
- Additionally, officers always make the final decision on all applications. The system never refuses or recommends refusing applications – any refusal decision always comes from an officer based on their assessment of the application.
Chinook
- Chinook does not assess or make decisions on applications.
- It is a Microsoft Excel-based tool that streamlines the administrative steps that would otherwise be required to process applications. It was designed for officers to simplify the visual representation of a client’s information.
- Chinook displays information stored in the Global Case Management System (GCMS), IRCC’s processing system and system of record, in a more user-friendly way, allowing for increased GCMS user productivity.
- Chinook provides an improved user interface for our officers and helps to alleviate processing delays related to Internet bandwidth. The tool is not an artificial intelligence system and does not automate decision-making. Chinook is different and separate from IRCC’s Advanced Analytics tools and is not linked to them in any way.
Supporting Facts and Figures
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Background
- GCMS is Canada’s integrated and worldwide web-based system used to process applications for immigration, citizenship and passport services. It was first introduced to process applications for citizenship services, and has since extended its immigration-related functions to include the Canada Border Services Agency and other federal government groups, such as the Department of Justice and the Immigration Refugee Board. Each partner, whose responsibility also lies in the application of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, is granted access to the System based on their specific responsibility.
- Without investments to stabilize IRCC’s information technology infrastructure and bring it up to current technology standards, the Department will be required to hire resources at a rapid rate to keep pace with the rise in volumes, and will experience both growing structural costs and rising processing times as a result.
- The DPM project aims to stabilize and standardize our current information technology system, and to build the foundation for a new digital platform for the Global Case Management System used all over the world by IRCC, the Canada Border Services Agency and other partner agencies for managing the status of visitors, temporary residents and immigrants.
- Enabling the next-generation operating model with a suite of digital and operational levers will allow IRCC to begin improving its existing business processes rapidly with effective scaling.
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