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Archived - 2017-18 Annual Report on the Privacy Act

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Table of Contents

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 2017 to 2018. 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 6,811 employees working across Canada in five operational Areas 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:

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 14 federal statutes and 37 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 Program Alignment Architecture, 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 Actis the primary responsibility of the Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) Office 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 14.31 full-time equivalents and 1.42 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 $156,774 in salary costs and $36,076 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 26 training sessions to 393 employees in the five operational Areas during fiscal year 2017 to18. 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. Finally, open-mic sessions were held to deploy the ATIP Paperless initiative and respond to employees' questions and concerns about the changes.

Policies, guidelines and procedures

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

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. Adherence of Canadians to Buy-online services continues to increase. From April 1, 2017 to March 31, 2018, the Agency received 20 privacy requests through this system.

In this reporting period, the Agency focused on establishing a new self-assessment tool to assess privacy compliance at the executive level. The results of the first self-assessment cycle will be reported in the next Annual Report.

2) How requests were processed under the Act

The CFIA received 48 new privacy requests under the Privacy Act between April 1, 2017 and March 31, 2018. This represents an increase of 8 % from the previous reporting period. There were two (2) outstanding requests from the previous year, keeping the total to 50 requests that required processing. 47 requests were completed during the reporting period leaving a total of 3 to be carried forward in FY 2018 to19. From the completed requests, a total of 6,544 pages were reviewed and 3,361 were released pursuant to the Act. The ATIP Office maintained throughout the reporting period a very high service standard with 98 % of the requests closed on time.

The following table outlines the cycle of Privacy requests at CFIA for the last five fiscal years:
Fiscal Year 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18
Received 24 23 38 44 48
Completed 38 32 31 49 47
Outstanding from previous FY 23 9 0 7 2
Carried forward 9 0 7 2 3

The ATIP Office also received 21 informal requests for personal information and reviewed 5,427 pages during 2017 to 2018. This represents an increase of 1,128 % of pages reviewed over the previous year.

The following table outlines the cycle of informal Privacy requests received at CFIA for the last five fiscal years:
Fiscal Year 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18
Informal requests 2 9 8 13 21

Consultations

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

Completion times and extensions

The 47 requests completed in 2017 to 2018 were processed in the following timeframes:

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 47 completed requests:

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 24 times. The exemptions were invoked as follows:

The Agency did not exclude any information under the Act.

3) Complaints and investigations

The CFIA received two complaints from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in 2017 to 2018. This represents the same number of complaint received in the previous reporting period. During fiscal year 2017 to 2018, one complaint was completed, resolved and well founded.

4) Court cases

There were no applications filed with the Federal Court of Canada for the fiscal year 2017 to 2018.

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 was 1 Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) completed during the reporting period. The PIA was entitled "Electronic Service Delivery Platform". This new platform aims to provide tools for citizens, industry, international trading partners, and CFIA inspectors to more readily carry out their respective roles and conduct regular business transactions, such as inspection, permission, licensing and export certification. The CFIA is currently working on the posting of executive summaries of completed PIAs to be aligned with the Treasury Board Secretariat requirements.

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 2017 to 2018. 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

Statistical Report on the Privacy Act

Name of institution: Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Reporting Period: 2017/04/01 to 2018/03/31

Part 1 – Requests under the Privacy Act

1.1 Number of Requests
Number of Requests
Received during the reporting period 48
Outstanding from previous reporting period 2
Total 50
Closed during reporting period 47
Carried over to next reporting period 3

Part 2 – Requests closed during the reporting period

2.1 Disposition and completion time
Disposition of requests Completion Time
1 to 15 days 16 to 30 days 31 to 60 days 61 to 120 days 121 to 180 days 181 to 365 days More than 365 Total
All disclosed 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 4
Disclosed in part 1 6 5 0 0 1 0 13
All exempted 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1
All excluded 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
No records exist 6 5 0 0 0 0 0 11
Request abandoned 9 3 6 0 0 0 0 18
Neither confirmed nor denied 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 15 18 12 0 0 1 0 47
2.2 Exemptions
Section Number of Requests
18(2) 0
19(1)(a) 0
19(1)(b) 0
19(1)(c) 0
19(1)(d) 0
19(1)(e) 0
19(1)(f) 0
20 0
21 1
22(1)(a)(i) 0
22(1)(a)(ii) 0
22(1)(a)(iii) 0
22(1)(b) 1
22(1)(c) 0
22(2) 0
22.1 0
22.2 1
22.3 1
23(a) 1
23(b) 0
24(a) 0
24(b) 0
25 0
26 14
27 3
28 0
2.3 Exclusions
Section Number of Requests
69(1)(a) 0
69(1)(b) 0
69.1 0
70(1) 0
70(1)(a) 0
70(1)(b) 0
70(1)(c) 0
70(1)(d) 0
70(1)(e) 0
70(1)(f) 0
70.1 0
2.4 Format of information released
Disposition Paper Electronic Other formats
All disclosed 3 1 0
Disclosed in part 4 9 0
Total 7 10 0
2.5 Complexity
2.5.1 Relevant pages processed and disclosed
Disposition of requests Number of pages processed Number of pages disclosed Number of requests
All disclosed 30 30 4
Disclosed in part 6277 3331 13
All exempted 178 0 1
All excluded 0 0 0
Request abandoned 59 0 18
Neither confirmed nor denied 0 0 0
Total 6544 3361 36
2.5.2 Relevant pages processed and disclosed by size of requests
Disposition Less than 100 pages processed 101-500 pages processed 501-1000 pages processed 1001-5000 pages processed More than 5000 pages processed
No. of requests Pages dis- closed No. of requests Pages dis- closed No. of requests Pages dis- closed No. of requests Pages dis- closed No. of requests Pages dis- closed
All disclosed 4 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Disclosed in part 5 98 4 651 2 1163 2 1419 0 0
All exempted 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
All excluded 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Request abandoned 18 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Neither confirmed nor denied 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 27 128 5 651 2 1163 2 1419 0 0
2.5.3 Other complexities
Disposition Consultation required Legal Advice Sought Interwoven Information Other Total
All disclosed 0 0 0 0 0
Disclosed in part 1 0 3 1 5
All exempted 1 0 1 0 2
All excluded 0 0 0 0 0
Request abandoned 0 0 6 0 6
Neither confirmed nor denied 0 0 0 0 0
Total 2 0 10 1 13
2.6 Deemed refusals
2.6.1 Reasons for not meeting statutory deadline
Number of requests closed past the statutory deadline Principal Reason
Workload External consultation Internal consultation Other
1 1 0 0 0
2.6.2 Number of days past deadline
Number of days past deadline Number of requests past deadline where no extension was taken Number of requests past deadline where an extension was taken Total
1 to 15 days

0

0

0

16 to 30 days

0

0

0

31 to 60 days

0

0

0

61 to 120 days

0

0

0

121 to 180 days

0

0

0

181 to 365 days

0

1

1

More than 365 days

0

0

0

Total

0

1

1

2.7 Requests for translation
Translation Requests Accepted Refused Total
English to French 0 0 0
French to English 0 0 0
Total 0 0 0

Part 3 – Disclosures under subsection 8(2) and 8(5)

Paragraph 8(2)(e) Paragraph 8(2)(m) Paragraph 8(5) Total
4 0 0 4

Part 4 – Requests for correction of personal information and notations

Disposition for correction requests received Number
Notations attached 0
Requests for correction accepted 0
Total 0

Part 5 – Extensions

5.1 Reasons for extensions and dispositions of requests
Disposition of requests where an extension was taken 15(a)(i) Interference with operations 15(a)(ii) Consultation 15(b) Translation or conversion
Section 70 Other
All disclosed 0 0 0 0
Disclosed in part 5 0 1 0
All exempted 0 0 1 0
All excluded 0 0 0 0
No records exist 0 0 0 0
Request abandoned 6 0 0 0
Total 11 0 2 0
5.2 Length of extensions
Length of extensions 15(a)(i) Interference with operations 15(a)(ii) Consultation 15(b) Translation purposes
Section 70 Other
1 to 15 days 0 0 0 0
16 to 30 days 11 0 2 0
Total 11 0 2 0

Part 6 – Consultation received from other institutions and organizations

6.1 Consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions and other organizations
Consultations Other Government of Canada institutions Number of pages to review Other organizations Number of pages to review
Received during the reporting period 0 0 0 0
Outstanding from the previous reporting period 0 0 0 0
Total 0 0 0 0
Closed during the reporting period 0 0 0 0
Pending at the end of the reporting period 0 0 0 0
6.2 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions
Recommendation Number of days required to complete consultation requests
1 to 15 days 16 to 30 days 31 to 60 days 61 to 120 days 121 to 180 days 181 to 365 days More than 365 Total
All disclosed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Disclosed in part 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
All exempted 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
All excluded 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Consult other institution 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
6.3 Recommendations and completion time for consultations received from other organizations
Recommendation Number of days required to complete consultation requests
1 to 15 days 16 to 30 days 31 to 60 days 61 to 120 days 121 to 180 days 181 to 365 days More than 365 Total
All disclosed 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Disclosed in part 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
All exempted 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
All excluded 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Consult other institution 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Other 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Part 7 – Completion time of consultations on Cabinet confidences

7.1 Requests with Legal Services
Number of days Fewer than 100 pages processed 101-500 pages processed 501-1000 pages processed 1001-5000 pages processed More than 5000 pages processed
No. of requests Pages dis- closed No. of requests Pages dis- closed No. of requests Pages dis- closed No. of requests Pages dis- closed No. of requests Pages dis- closed
1 to 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
16 to 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
31 to 60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
61 to 120 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
121 to 180 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
181 to 365 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
More than 365 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
7.2 Requests with Privy Council Office
Number of days Fewer than 100 pages processed 101-500 pages processed 501-1000 pages processed 1001-5000 pages processed More than 5000 pages processed
Number of requests Pages dis- closed Number of requests Pages dis- closed Number of requests Pages dis- closed Number of requests Pages dis- closed Number of requests Pages dis- closed
1 to 15 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
16 to 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
31 to 60 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
61 to 120 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
121 to 180 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
181 to 365 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
More than 365 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Total 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Part 8 – Complaints and investigations notices received

Section 31 Section 33 Section 35 Court action Total
2 0 0 0 2

Part 9 – Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs)

Number of PIA (s) completed 1

Part 10 – Resources related to the Privacy Act

10.1 Costs
Expenditures Amount
Salaries $156,774
Overtime $0

Goods and Services

  • Professional services contracts ($29,204)
  • Other ($6,872)
36,076
Total $192,850
10.2 Human Resources
Resources Person years dedicated to Privacy activities
Full-time employees 1.85
Part-time and casual employees 0.00
Regional staff 0.00
Consultants and agency personnel 0.12
Students 0.00
Total 1.97

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 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.

Date: May 15, 2017, President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Delegation Schedule

Position/Titles

Schedule

Access to Information Act and Regulations

Schedule

Privacy Act and Regulations

Executive Vice-President Full authority Full authority
Chief Redress Officer, Integrity and Redress Secretariat (IRS) Full authority Full authority
Director, Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP), IRS Full authority Full authority
Manager, ATIP, IRS Full authority Full authority
Team Leader, ATIP, IRS Full authority Full authority
Senior Analyst and Analyst, ATIP, IRS

Sections of the Access to Information Act:

4(2.1), 7, 9, 11(2), 11(3), 11(4), 11(5), 27(1), 27(4), 28(1)(b), 33 and 35(2)(b).

Sections of the Access to Information Regulations:
7(2) and 7(3)

Sections of the Privacy Act:

8(4), 15 and 33(2)

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