Lead implementing department(s)
Treasury Board Secretariat
Pillars
Foundational
Reporting period
Mid-term (July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017)
Commitment description
What is the public problem that the commitment will address?
Canadians requesting personal information are faced with a process that’s complicated and difficult to navigate. Transparency includes providing Canadians with timely access to their own personal information held by government.
What is the commitment?
The Government of Canada will make it easier for Canadians to access their own personal information held by the federal government.
How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?
To make it easier for Canadians to access government information, including their personal information, the Government will create a simple, central website where Canadians can submit requests to any government institution. This will be backed up with a 30-day guarantee for personal information requests: should a request take longer than 30 days to fulfill, it is proposed that the Government will provide a written explanation for the delay to the requester and to the Privacy Commissioner.Relevance to OGP values
This commitment relates to the OGP value of transparency.
Status update
Deliverables in Action Plan
- Develop a central website where Canadians can submit personal information requests to any government institution, with first phase of roll-out targeted for 2018.
- Implement a 30-day guarantee for requests for personal information, backed by a commitment to provide a written explanation to the requester and the Privacy Commissioner should a request take longer than 30 days to fulfill.
Expected result
Canadians will be able to use a central website to easily access their personal information held by the government backed by a 30-day guarantee for requests for personal information.
Description of results
- The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat has worked to identify business requirements for the website. Usability testing is completed on the current Access to Information and Privacy Online Pilot site.
- The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat has shared implementation options with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) and received feedback.
Next steps to June 2018
- Next steps include continuing with the interaction design of the new Access to Information and Privacy Online Request service; building a prototype, testing it and adjusting as required. Progress is on track to deliver the first phase of roll-out by June 2018.
- The next steps are to finalize the approach and then implement it across approximately 240 institutions subject to the Privacy Act.
Completion level
- Limited
- Substantial