Archived - 2019 to 2020 Annual Report on the Privacy Act

On this page

• 1) Introduction
• 2) How requests were processed under the act
• 3) Complaints and investigations
• 4) Court cases
• 5) Other reporting requirements under the act
• Appendix A: Statistical Report
• 2019 to 2020 Supplemental Statistical Report – Requests affected by COVID-19 measures
• Appendix B: Delegation Order

1) Introduction

The Privacy Act (hereafter referred to as the act) gives Canadian citizens as well as individuals present in Canada, the right to access personal information about themselves held by the government. The act also protects the privacy of individuals by setting out parameters in relation to the collection, use, disclosure, retention and disposal of personal information held by federal government institutions.

Section 72 of the act requires the heads of federal government institutions to submit a report to Parliament on their institution's administration of the act each fiscal year. This report, along with all Privacy annual reports, is tabled in Parliament in accordance with section 72 of the act and describes how the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) administered the act for fiscal year 2019 to 2020. It was prepared in accordance with the reporting requirements outlined by Treasury Board Secretariat.

The CFIA is mandated to safeguard Canada's food supply and the plants and animals upon which safe and high-quality food depends. As part of its commitment to openness and transparency, the CFIA recognizes the right to access information in government records and is making every reasonable effort to help anyone making an access to information request.

About the Canadian Food Inspection Agency

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is one of Canada's largest science-based regulatory agencies. It has over 6,590 employees working across Canada in 5 operational regions including the National Capital Region (NCR) Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario and West. The CFIA is dedicated to safeguarding food safety, animal and plant health, which enhances Canada's environment, economy, and the health and well-being of Canada's people.

CFIA develops program requirements and delivers inspection and other services to:

• prevent and manage food safety risks
• protect plant resources from pests, diseases and invasive species
• prevent and manage animal and zoonotic diseases
• contribute to consumer protection
• contribute to market access for Canada's food, plants, animals and their products

CFIA bases its activities on science, effective risk management, commitment to service and efficiency, and collaboration with domestic and international organizations that share its objectives.

The CFIA is responsible for administering and enforcing 11 federal statutes and 22 regulations that govern the safety and labelling of food sold in Canada and support a sustainable plant and animal resource base.

The CFIA shares many areas of responsibility with other federal departments and agencies, provincial, territorial and municipal authorities, and other stakeholders. Within this complex operating environment, the agency works with its partners to implement food safety measures, manage food, animal and plant risks and emergencies, and promote the development of food safety and disease control systems to maintain the safety of Canada's high-quality agriculture, agri-food, aquaculture and fishery products. The agency's activities include: verifying the compliance of imported products; registering and inspecting establishments; testing food, animals and plants, and their related products; and approving the use of many agricultural inputs. The agency also provides scientific advice, develops new technologies, provides testing services, and conducts regulatory research.

The CFIA's responsibilities and strategic outcomes are illustrated in its Departmental Results Framework which reflects how the agency allocates and manages its resources to achieve the corresponding expected results. The CFIA is led by its President who reports to the Minister of Health.

Administration of the act

The administration of the act is the primary responsibility of the Access to Information and Privacy Office (ATIP) of the Integrity and Redress Secretariat. The ATIP office processes all requests for information and coordinates all activities related to the act, associated regulations, directives and guidelines. The ATIP office is headed by a Director who reports to the Chief Redress Officer. During the reporting period, there were 12.69 full-time, part-time or student equivalents and 0.82 persons (consultants) dedicated to the ATIP office.

In addition to the ATIP office resources, there are also dedicated ATIP advisor positions in the core branches who report on branch-related ATIP issues and activities. These branch advisors work with the ATIP office to ensure an efficient and effective process to respond to the applicants in a timely manner.

Resources

An estimated $181,368 in salary costs and $47,252 in operating costs were incurred by the ATIP office to administer the Privacy Act for the reporting period. These costs do not include resources within each branch such as the ATIP advisors, or any other expenditures incurred by the branches and program areas to meet the requirements of the act.

Staff training and awareness

The ATIP office provided 6 training sessions to 68 employees in the 5 operational regions during fiscal year 2019 to 2020. The aim of the training sessions was to increase awareness of the act, clarify requirements under the act, and highlight processes that support the CFIA in meeting its obligations. In addition to the training delivered by the ATIP office, branch ATIP advisors provided awareness sessions within their respective branches. The work of the branch ATIP advisors was complemented and facilitated through weekly touch base meetings with ATIP management and monthly meetings where operational issues, including training and awareness were discussed and plans formulated for resolution.

Policies, guidelines and procedures

The CFIA continued to work on process improvements for ATIP activities in order to provide greater oversight and accountability. The activities related to access to information and privacy are reviewed quarterly by Senior Management.

As part of Canada's commitment to "Open Government", the ATIP Buy-online was implemented at the CFIA in January 2014. It enables Canadians to make privacy requests online for information held by the agency. Utilization by Canadians of Buy-online services continues to increase. From April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020, the agency received 42 privacy requests through this system.

During this reporting period, the agency completed an assessment of privacy knowledge and compliance at the executive level. The assessment results, acquired through analysis of a series of online "mini-surveys" conducted with the entire agency executive community, provided important baseline information that in concert with the recent findings of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner regarding government-wide privacy compliance, informed the development of an agency 3 year Privacy Strategy.

Complementing its previous ATIP paperless initiative, the ATIP office developed standardized processes and practices to shift the office's internal case management to an entirely digital and near-paperless file format. Implemented in late 2019, this employee-designed and led initiative saw the full review of ATIP office processes followed by the design and documentation of a comprehensive set of digitally-focused standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the ATIP office. The new SOPs were structured into an intuitive, searchable electronic platform accessible by all ATIP team members. In addition to promoting a near-paperless office process, the digital SOPs allow for the quick and accurate update of a single source of procedural reference for the team and enables process improvements for the periodic review of office practices and the monitoring of both office and individual performance.

Finally, the latter portion of the reporting period found Canada in the midst of responding to a world-wide pandemic. With the implementation of sweeping measures to control the spread of COVID-19 in mid-March 2020, the agency's ATIP office was forced to shift work in a variety of ways. The ATIP office was able to capitalize on work-from-home procedures it had implemented in association with its digital SOP initiative to seamlessly transition ATIP analyst work to an entirely remote work format. Still, limitations in network capacity and the need to focus limited agency resources on emergency management and the continued delivery of essential services forced ATIP to implement significant operational changes. While ATIP remained operational through the remainder of the reporting period by continuing to process its ongoing request workload from prior to inception of pandemic measures and by continuing to deliver essential privacy advice services to internal clients, it ceased tasking agency branches with record retrieval and shifted its work schedule to accommodate the requirement to maximize network availability for essential workers during normal daytime hours of work. As the situation involving the pandemic continues to evolve, the ATIP office will seek opportunities to innovate and adapt in order to return to normal operations as soon as feasible.

2) How requests were processed under the act

The CFIA received 51 new privacy requests under the Privacy Act between April 1, 2019 and March 31, 2020. This represents an increase of 19% from the previous reporting period. There were 5 outstanding requests from the previous year, increasing the total to 56 requests that required processing. 50 requests were completed during the reporting period leaving a total of 6 to be carried forward in FY 2020 to 2021. In completing the 50 requests, a total of 19,444 pages were reviewed and 11,306 were released pursuant to the act. Throughout the reporting period, the ATIP office maintained a very high service standard with 94% of the requests closed on time.

The following table outlines the cycle of privacy requests at CFIA for the last 5 fiscal years:

The ATIP office also received 24 informal requests for personal information and reviewed 2,679 pages stemming from these requests during 2019 to 2020.

The following table outlines the cycle of informal privacy requests received at CFIA for the last 5 fiscal years:

Consultations

There were no consultations received from other institutions during the reporting period.

Completion times and extensions

The 50 requests completed in 2019 to 2020 were processed in the following timeframes:

• 30 within 30 days or less (60%)
• 13 within 31 to 60 days (26%)
• 4 within 61 to 120 days (8%)
• 3 over 121 days (6%)

The CFIA monitors the performance of responding to requests by reporting quarterly to senior officials of the agency.

Disposition of completed requests

The following represents the disposition of the 50 completed requests:

• 2 were fully disclosed (4%)
• 31 were partially disclosed (62%)
• 1 where no records existed (2%)
• 16 were abandoned (32%)

All requesters received copies of the requested information as opposed to reviewing the information on site.

Exemptions and exclusions

• The CFIA invoked exemptions pursuant to the act a total of 46 times. The exemptions invoked were as follows:
• 1 for personal information obtained in confidence (s.19)
• 2 for safety of individuals (s.25)
• 30 for personal information (s.26)
• 13 for solicitor-client privilege (s.27)

The agency did not exclude any information under the act.

3) Complaints and investigations

The CFIA did not receive any complaints from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in 2019 to 2020. This represents the decrease of 2 complaints received in the previous reporting period. During fiscal year 2019 to 2020, 3 complaints were completed. Of these 3 complaints, 1 was discontinued and 2 were resolved and well founded.

4) Court cases

There were no applications filed with the Federal Court of Canada for the fiscal year 2019 to 2020.

5) Other reporting requirements under the act

Privacy breaches

There were 2 privacy breaches that occurred during the reporting period of which none were material breaches.

Privacy Impact Assessments

There were 2 Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) completed during the reporting period.

An area of significant effort for the CFIA over the last several years has been the preparations for the coming into force of the new Safe Food for Canadians Act (SFCA) and its supporting regulations (in other words, Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR)). The SFCA and SFCR came into force on January 15, 2019. An important part of the SFCA/SFCR was the establishment of a licensing regime for the domestic food industry. A PIA in relation to the SFCR was begun during the previous reporting period but was not formally closed until early into the current reporting period. The PIA supporting service modernization initiatives under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations was completed and confirmed received by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on June 19, 2019.

As an independent employer, the CFIA takes its responsibilities related to the management of human resources very seriously and invests regularly in measures to enable and maintain the effective management of its human resources. Included among these responsibilities is the protection of the personal information of its employees. The agency's HR branch is implementing a system and process to better integrate HR data across the agency. A PIA in support of the Human Resources Business Intelligence project was completed and submitted in the fall of 2019.

Disclosures under section 8(2) (m) of the act

There were no disclosures made pursuant to section 8(2) (m) of the Privacy Act during the fiscal year 2019 to 2020. Section 8(2)(m) relates to the disclosure of personal information for any purpose where, in the opinion of the head of the institution, clearly outweighs any invasion of privacy that could result from the disclosure, or would clearly benefit the individual to whom the information relates.

Appendix A: Statistical Report

Name of institution: Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Reporting Period: 2019-04-01 to 2020-03-31

Section 1: Requests under the Privacy Act

1.1 Number of Requests

Section 2: Requests closed during the reporting period

2.1 Disposition and completion time

2.2 Exemptions

2.3 Exclusions

2.4 Format of information released

2.5 Complexity

2.5.1 Relevant pages processed and disclosed

2.5.2 Relevant pages processed and disclosed by size of requests

2.5.3 Other complexities

2.6 Closed requests

2.6.1 Number of requests closed within legislated timelines

2.7 Deemed refusals

2.7.1 Reasons for not meeting legislated timelines

2.7.2 Requests closed beyond legislated timelines (including any extension taken)

2.8 Requests for translation

Section 3: Disclosures under subsections 8(2) and 8(5)

Section 4: Requests for correction of personal information and notations

Section 5: Extensions

5.1 Reasons for extensions and disposition of requests

5.2 Length of extensions

Section 6: Consultations received from other institutions and organizations

6.1 Consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions and other organizations

6.2 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions

6.3 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other organizations

Section 7: Completion time of consultations on Cabinet confidences

7.1 Requests with Legal Services

7.2 Requests with Privy Council Office

Section 8: Complaints and investigations notices received

Section 9: Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) and Personal Information Banks (PIB)

9.1 Privacy Impact Assessments

9.2 Personal Information Banks

Section 10: Material privacy breaches

Section 11: Resources related to the Privacy Act

11.1 Costs

11.2 Human Resources

2019 to 2020 Supplemental Statistical Report – Requests affected by COVID-19 measures

Supplemental Statistical Report on the Privacy Act

The following table reports the total number of formal requests received during 2 periods: 2019-04-01 to 2020-03-13 and 2020-03-14 to 2020-03-31.

The following table reports the total number of requests closed within the legislated timelines and the number of closed requests that were deemed refusals during 2 periods: 2019-04-01 to 2020-03-13 and 2020-03-14 to 2020-03-31.

The following table reports the total number of requests carried over during 2 periods: 2019-04-01 to 2020-03-13 and 2020-03-14 to 2020-03-31.

Appendix B: Delegation Order

Access to Information Act and Privacy Act Delegation Orders

The President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency pursuant to section 73 of the Access to Information Act, and section 73 of the Privacy Act, hereby designates the persons holding 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 President as the head of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, under the provisions of the act and related regulations set out in the schedule opposite each position. This designation replaces all previous delegation orders.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Delegation Schedule

Original signed by:

Dr. Siddika Mithani, Ph.D.
President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Ottawa, Canada
May 10, 2019