Accessibility Plan - December 2025
General
The Office of the Intelligence Commissioner (ICO) has prepared its accessibility plan to meet ICO’s obligations under the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) and the Accessible Canada Regulations (ACR).
The Accessible Canada Act requires that federally regulated entities create accessibility plans, updated every three years. The Act also requires that federally regulated entities publish annual accessibility plan progress reports in the intervening years. The Office of the Intelligence Commissioner (ICO) published its initial Accessibility Plan in 2022 and subsequent progress reports in 2023 and 2024. This year (2025) marks the beginning of a new reporting cycle. Accessibility is an ongoing practice. The ICO’s 2025 Plan will continue to explain how it will identify, prevent, and remove accessibility barriers. The ICO remains committed to removing barriers to accessibility and fostering a culture of inclusion.
Given its specific role – supporting the fulfillment of the Intelligence Commissioner’s oversight mandate as set out in the Intelligence Commissioner Act – the ICO does not provide programs and services to the public. The ICO is committed to transparency and accessibility and contributes to this commitment by publishing the Intelligence Commissioner’s decisions electronically and making them available in an accessible format.
Please send your feedback to the ICO’s Executive Director and General Counsel.
You can send your feedback by email, telephone or mail using the contact information listed below.
For more information on how you can send your feedback, see our feedback process description.
You can use the contact information listed below to ask us for a copy of our accessibility plan and our feedback process description in these alternate formats: print, large print, Braille, audio or an electronic format that is compatible with adaptive technology that is intended to assist persons with disabilities. We will provide the format you ask for as soon as possible. Braille and audio formats may take up to 45 days. Print, large print and electronic formats may take up to 15 days.
Contact us:
Email: info@ico-bcr.gc.ca
Telephone: 613-992-3044
Mail: P.O. Box 1474, Station B Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5P6
Consultations
The ICO is a micro agency with less than 10 employees. Given the size of the organization, the ICO consulted with other organizations to help identify potential barriers and develop action plans to eliminate them. For example, the Privy Council Office (PCO) shared the results of its internal consultations. These consultations were useful to the ICO when updating its current Accessibility Plan. The ICO plans to continue to leverage the results of other organizations to obtain more complete feedback from external subject matter experts.
Areas in section 5 of the Accessible Canada Act
Employment
We identified the following barriers:
Barrier 1: Size of organization
Barrier 2: Onboarding process
We will do the following to remove and prevent those barriers:
Barrier 1: Continue to work with other departments to identify accessibility barriers and available solutions, raising awareness about disability inclusion, and implementing initiatives to foster a more inclusive working environment for persons with disabilities. This is an ongoing consideration.
Barrier 2: Review the onboarding process with a pan-disability lens (e.g., ensure onboarding process and resources are inclusive of employees with other invisible disabilities). This review will be launched in the next fiscal year.
The built environment
We identified the following barriers:
Barrier 1: Addressing accessibility considerations in physical workspace.
We will do the following to remove and prevent those barriers:
Barrier 1: Work with Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) to ensure accessibility considerations are addressed during any new construction projects. This fiscal year, the ICO launched a construction project with PSPC and will start construction, if feasible, the following year.
Information and communication technologies
We identified the following barriers:
Barrier 1: Videos posted on the ICO website do not include captions.
Barrier 2: Structured electronic file system.
We will do the following to remove and prevent those barriers:
Barrier 1: Work with Service Canada, the principal publisher for Canada.ca – the ICO’s website – to add captions to videos within the next fiscal year.
Barrier 2: Complete migration to GCdocs to facilitate the sharing of documents in a variety of accessible formats within the next fiscal year.
Communication, other than information and communication technologies
We identified the following barriers:
Barrier 1: The Intelligence Commissioner’s decisions are initially classified and can include complex legal issues.
We will do the following to remove and prevent those barriers:
Barrier 1: Continue writing in plain language using the approach of “writing-to-release”. This is an ongoing consideration.
The procurement of goods, services and facilities
PSPC is the Government of Canada’s common service provider for the procurement of goods, services, and facilities. The ICO utilizes PSPC tools for the procurement of all goods, services, and facilities.
The design and delivery of programs and services
The ICO does not provide programs or services directly to the public.
Transportation
The ICO does not provide transportation to the public.
Conclusion
The ICO will monitor and measure progress to ensure that accessibility objectives and the removal of identified barriers are achieved.
The ICO encourages feedback using feedback process. The feedback received will be used to help ICO implement its accessibility plan.
This accessibility plan is year one of the new reporting cycle and subsequent progress reports on the implementation of the ICO’s accessibility plan will be published in years 2 and 3.