Annual report to Parliament on the application of the Privacy Act 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021

Place du Centre, 4th floor
200 Promenade du Portage
Gatineau, Québec,  K1A 1K8

10 December 2021

The Honourable Bill Blair, P.C., M.P.
President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada
and Minister of Emergency Preparedness
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6

Dear Minister:

In accordance with section 72 of the Privacy Act, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada is pleased to submit to Parliament this report on its activities relating to the application of the Act for the period 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.

Sincerely,

1.0 Introduction

Pursuant to section 72 of the Privacy Act, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) is pleased to table in Parliament this report on its activities relating to the application of the Act. The report covers the period from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.

The purpose of the Privacy Act is to protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves held by government institutions such as the TSB, and to provide individuals with a right of access to that information.

The Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board Act provides the legal framework that governs the TSB’s activities. Our mandate is to advance transportation safety in the air, marine, pipeline and rail modes of transportation by:

• conducting independent investigations, including public inquiries when necessary, into selected transportation occurrences in order to make findings as to their causes and contributing factors;
• identifying safety deficiencies, as evidenced by transportation occurrences;
• making recommendations designed to eliminate or reduce any such safety deficiencies; and
• reporting publicly on our investigations and on the findings in relation thereto.

More information on the TSB is available at www.tsb-bst.gc.ca.

The TSB’s administration of its Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) activities is in accordance with the government’s stated principles that government information should be available to the public with only specific and limited exceptions. Furthermore, the TSB treats personal information in compliance with the code of fair information practice expressed in the Privacy Act.

2.0 ATIP Office organization

During 2020–21, the Director General, Corporate Services held the responsibilities of the ATIP Coordinator. The ATIP Office also consisted of four full-time positions and help from a consultant.

The ATIP Office administers the requests made pursuant to the Act and provides functional advice and guidance to managers and employees concerning the release of information and protection of privacy. ATIP analysts are required to exhibit strong consultative and negotiating skills when meeting with requesters, employees of the TSB, and representatives of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner.

3.0 Delegation of authority

As required by the legislation, a delegation of authority is in place. For the purposes of the Privacy Act, the “head of the institution” as defined in section 3 of the Act is the Chair of the TSB. The incumbents of the positions of Chief Operating Officer, General Counsel, Director General for Corporate Services and Senior ATIP Analyst have been delegated powers by the Chair deemed appropriate for the effective administration of the Act. These employees ensure that the TSB meets all its obligations fairly and consistently. The delegation authority was updated in November 2019 and remains unchanged. A copy of the Delegation Order is attached as Appendix A.

4.0 Disposition of requests

4.1 Requests for personal information

During the 2020–21 reporting period, twenty-two (22) formal requests for personal information were received, compared to twenty-three (23) received in 2019-20 and twenty-six (26) in 2018–19. Privacy requests received by the TSB are primarily attributed to Canadian airline pilots inquiring as to whether they are named in any occurrences reported to the TSB as certain international airlines request this information as a pre-employment requirement. As well, some employees will request access to their personal information.

Of the twenty-four (24) requests closed in 2020–21, records were fully disclosed in twenty (20) cases (84%), in two (2) cases (8%) records didn’t exist and in two (2) cases (8%) records were disclosed in part. One (1) request was carried over to the next fiscal year.

Of the requests closed during the reporting period, twenty (20) were completed within 1 to 15 days, two (2) were completed within 16 to 30 days and two (2) were completed within 181 to 365 days. The average time taken to process a request during the 2020–21 reporting period was thirty-three (33) calendar days, compared with last year’s average of eight (8) calendar days in 2019-20. Additional delays were caused by limited physical accesses to office and repository sites due to sanitary measures during the pandemic, delaying capacity to verify paper records.

During this period, the ATIP Office was involved in the search, preparation, and review of one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four (1934) pages of information, and the reproduction and release of seven hundred (700) pages of information. Last year, twenty-two (22) pages were reviewed and eighteen (18) pages were released. The variation in the number of pages reviewed between years is due to the different type of requests received and additional requests from employees requesting access to their personal information.

The TSB’s policy of openness allows for the disclosure of information to its employees without necessarily requiring that they invoke the Privacy Act. Human resources officers and support staff handle these requests as part of their routine duties. The TSB remains vigilant in meeting requirements under the Act to protect personal information under its control. This is achieved by ensuring that employees are cognizant of their responsibility to protect the personal information they handle in the course of their duties and by respecting the code of fair information practice enshrined in the legislation.

As with all federal institutions, the situation of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) affected the operations of the TSB ATIP office since mid-March 2020. However, the TSB ATIP Office was already operating remotely from time to time by some of its employees prior to the initiation of public health measures to counter the spread of the virus and the pandemic, with the majority of records also being in electronic format. Despite a slowdown in the speed of access to the electronic network due to the use of remote access to the computer network by all employees all at once, the TSB ATIP Office maintained its operations and process of ATIP requests till March 31st, 2021, with some delays due to limited access to paper records caused by public health measures and the pandemic.

5.0 Costs

During 2020–21, the ATIP Office incurred an estimated $28,574 in costs to administer the Privacy Act, compared to $39,007 for the reporting period of 2019-20 and $48,071 for the 2018–19 reporting period. These costs include salaries, overtime, goods and services, and professional services contracts for temporary help staff but do not include the resources expended by other areas of the TSB to meet the requirements of the Act.

6.0 Training and education

The TSB has an orientation program in place for new employees, which includes training on ATIP awareness. In addition, the TSB has now made it mandatory for all staff to attend comprehensive ATIP training sessions given by the ATIP Office. During 2020–21, the ATIP Office did not provide training sessions, compared to one (1) training session during 2019-20. The ATIP Office, however, worked on new training materials in order to prepare training sessions for next fiscal year and adapt this material for the new teleworking environment.  The ATIP Office plans on providing new training sessions to employees in 2021-22. The ATIP Office provides advice and guidance on an ongoing basis to individuals and employees internally, and documented fourteen (14) requests from various TSB sectors.

Given the responsibilities and knowledge requirements of the TSB ATIP Office, there is a long learning curve for its staff. Continuous on-the-job training is provided to ATIP staff to ensure sound and current knowledge of ATIP requirements and procedures, as well as TSB operations. In this context, ATIP staff attended by ways of video-conferencing to all ATIP Community Meetings organized by the Treasury Board Secretariat during 2020–21. These Community Meetings provided ATIP staff with valuable information on trends and best practices within the ATIP circle, updates on recent complaints and court cases, and tools to help improve service standards within the field. Additionally, refresher courses at the Canadian School of the Public Service are now offered on ATIP and ATIP staff attended some of these courses.  Finally, ATIP staff attended by videoconference the yearly Canadian Bar Association Symposium on Access to Information and Privacy’s latest law trends.

7.0 Policies, guidelines, and procedures

There were no changes to privacy-related policies, guidelines, or procedures implemented by the TSB during the reporting period.

8.0 Complaints and investigations

Two (2) complaints were received by the Privacy Commissioner during fiscal year 2020–21 about the TSB.  The complaints alleged that the TSB took unreasonable delays to respond to these privacy requests.  While the TSB had provided interim releases for what it could, and within legislated time requirements, the TSB could not complete a full search for records due to sanitary health measures during the pandemic, and limits to accesses to office and records storage facilities, causing an unusual longer delay to process these requests.  While the investigations about these complaints were ongoing at end of fiscal year 2020–21, the TSB  completed the searches and provided final responses to the requester by end of fiscal year 2020–21.

There were no other complaint from the previous fiscal year.

9.0 Monitoring process

The TSB monitors the time to process privacy requests, through biweekly meetings between the ATIP Coordinator and the Senior ATIP Analyst, during which the status of outstanding requests is reviewed. Any significant issues are raised to the Chief Operating Officer on an ad-hoc basis when required.

10.0 Material privacy breaches

No material privacy breaches occurred during the reporting period.

11.0 Privacy impact assessments

The TSB did not undertake any privacy impact assessments during the reporting period.

12.0 Disclosures pursuant to paragraph 8(2)(m)

During fiscal year 2020–21, the TSB made no disclosure of information in the public interest pursuant to paragraph 8(2)(m).

13.0 Statistics required by the Treasury Board

The statistics required by the Treasury Board Secretariat are found in Appendix B.

Appendices

Appendix A – Delegation order

Appendix B – Statistical report on the Privacy Act

Name of institution: Transportation Safety Board of Canada

Reporting period: 2020-04-01 to 2021-03-31

Part 1: Requests under the Privacy Act

1.1 Requests under the Privacy Act

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 request

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 statutory deadline

2.7.2 Number of days past deadline

2.8 Requests for translation

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

3.1 Disclosures under subsections 8(2) and 8(5)

Section 4: Requests for correction of personal information and notations

4.1 Requests for correction of personal information and notations

Section 5: Extensions

5.1 Reasons for extensions and disposition of requests

5.2 Length of extension

Section 6: Consultations received from other institutions and organizations

6.1 Consultations received from other Government of Canada institutions, 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

8.1 Complaints and investigations notices received

Section 9: Privacy impact assessments (PIAs) and personal information banks (PIBs)

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