Centre for Biosecurity: Administration of the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act and Regulations Privacy Impact Assessment (March 2017)

Description of Program

Human pathogens and toxins can present varying levels of risk to human health and safety. To minimize these risks, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) administers the Human Pathogens and Toxins Act and Regulations (HPTA/R). Activities include: an external advisory committee, training of staff, compliance audits, educational webinars, stakeholder engagement, security clearance and license issuance.

Why was a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) completed?

The Centre for Biosecurity (CB) in PHAC uses personal information as part of a decision‐making process to determine pathogen and toxin access and licensing.

The PIA examines the privacy-related risks of CB’s administration of the HPTA/R and proposes methods to mitigate and lower potential risks.

More Information

This PIA focused on PHAC’s collection, use, disclosure and retention and disposition of personal information involved in CB’s business processes.

The PIA recommended mitigation actions in the following risk areas: privacy notice statements; retention and disposition authorities; increased staff training; enhanced privacy during credit verification; and improved description of personal information holdings in InfoSource. The Privacy Management Division is implementing measures to address the recommended risk mitigation actions by fall 2018.