Transition Services and Casualty Management

Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) summary

Government Institution

Veteran Affairs Canada

Government Official Responsible for the Privacy Impact Assessment

Elizabeth Douglas
Director General, Service Delivery and Program Management

Head of the government institution / Delegate for section 10 of the Privacy Act

Amy Meunier
Director, Access to Information and Privacy

Name of Program or Activity of the Government Institution

Transition Services and Casualty Management

Description of Program or Activity

Transition Services

To ensure a seamless transition to civilian life, Transition Services has been designed to assist CF members, serving and retiring/releasing RCMP members, Veterans, including homeless Veterans and those clients serving a Federal sentence under the Criminal Code of Canada, and their families.

Casualty Management

In partnership with DND and the RCMP, casualty management ensures that members and their families receive immediate help when serious illnesses/injuries or deaths occur. Early interventions by VAC is necessary to provide benefits and/or services and ensure that clients and/or their families understand the support available when making future financial, health care, and career decisions.

Description of the Class of Record and Personal Information Bank associated with the program or activity

Class of Records and Personal Information banks can be reviewed at: VAC's Info Source Chapter

Legal Authority for Program or Activity

Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act, Department of Veterans Affairs Act, and/or the Pension Act.

Risk Area Identification & Categorization

The following section contains risks identified in the PIA for the new or modified program. A risk scale has been included. The numbered risk scale is presented in ascending order: the first level represents the lowest level of potential risk for the risk area; the fourth level (4) represents the highest level of potential risk for the given risk area. Please refer to “Appendix C” of the TBS Directive on PIAs to learn more about the risk scale.

1. Type of Program or Activity
   • Administration of Programs / Activity and Services
   • Personal information is used to make decisions that directly affect the individual (i.e. determining eligibility for programs including authentication for accessing programs/services, administering program payments, overpayments, or support to clients, issuing or denial of permits/licenses, processing appeals, etc…).

     Level of risk to privacy – 2

2. Type of Personal Information Involved and Context
   • Social Insurance Number, medical, financial or other sensitive personal information and/or the context surrounding the personal information is sensitive. Personal information of minors or incompetent individuals or involving a representative acting on behalf of the individual.

     Level of risk to privacy – 3

3. Program or Activity Partners and Private Sector Involvement
   • With other federal institutions.
     
     Private sector organizations or international organizations or foreign governments.

     Level of risk to privacy – 2, 4

4. Duration of the Program or Activity
   • Long-term program - Existing program that has been modified or is established with no clear "sunset".

     Level of risk to privacy – 3

5. Program Population
   • The program affects certain individuals for external administrative purposes.

     Level of risk to privacy – 3

6. Technology & Privacy
   1. Does the new or modified program or activity involve the implementation of a new electronic system, software or application program including collaborative software (or groupware) that is implemented to support the program or activity in terms of the creation, collection or handling of personal information?

      Risk to privacy - No

   2. Does the new or modified program or activity require any modifications to IT legacy systems and / or services?

      Risk to privacy - No

   3. Enhanced identification methods - This includes biometric technology (i.e. facial recognition, gait analysis, iris scan, fingerprint analysis, voice print, radio frequency identification (RFID), etc.) as well as easy pass technology, new identification cards including magnetic stripe cards, "smart cards" (i.e. identification cards that are embedded with either an antenna or a contact pad that is connected to a microprocessor and a memory chip or only a memory chip with non-programmable logic).

      Risk to privacy – No

   4. Use of Surveillance - This includes surveillance technologies such as audio/video recording devices, thermal imaging, recognition devices, RFID, surreptitious surveillance / interception, computer aided monitoring including audit trails, satellite surveillance etc.

      Risk to privacy – No

   5. Use of automated personal information analysis, personal information matching and knowledge discovery techniques - For the purposes of the Directive on PIA, government institution are to identify those activities that involve the use of automated technology to analyze, create, compare, cull, identify or extract personal information elements. Such activities would include personal information matching, record linkage, personal information mining, personal information comparison, knowledge discovery, information filtering or analysis. Such activities involve some form of artificial intelligence and/or machine learning to uncover knowledge (intelligence), trends/patterns or to predict behavior.

      Risk to privacy – No

7. Personal Information Transmission
   • The personal information is used in system that has connections to at least one other system.
     Mbr />The personal information is transferred to a portable device or is printed.
     
     The personal information is transmitted using wireless technologies.

     Level of risk to privacy – 2, 3, 4

8. Risk Impact to the Institution
   • Managerial harm
     
     Organizational harm
     
     Financial harm
     
     Reputation harm, embarrassment, loss of credibility. Decreased confidence by the public, elected officials under the spotlight, institution strategic outcome compromised, government priority compromised, impact on the Government of Canada Outcome areas.

     Level of risk to privacy – 1, 2, 3, 4

9. Risk Impact to the Individual or Employee
   • Reputation harm, embarrassment
   • Level of risk to privacy – 2