Supplement to Statistics Canada's Generic Privacy Impact Assessment related to Human Rights Cost Recovery Project
Date: November 2023
Program manager: Director, Centre for Social Data Integration and Development
Director General, Social Data Integration and Development
Reference to Personal Information Bank (PIB)
Personal information collected through the Human Rights Tribunal Project is described in Statistics Canada's "Justice Research" Personal information Bank (PIB), which collects information related to complaints filed pursuant to part III of the Canadian Human Rights Act. Complaints under part III of the Act may be filed against any federally regulated organization and concern allegations of discriminatory practices based on any of the prohibited grounds.
This bank describes justice-related files that contain personal identifiers and are used in statistical and analytical research. Sources of information may include selected databases from federal, provincial and municipal government bodies that are mandated to collect data pertaining to the justice system, which are submitted to Statistics Canada for specific research studies. Personal information (where available) may include name, date of birth, address and the following categories of information: biographical, citizenship status, educational, language and government issued identification.
The "Justice Research" Personal Information Bank (Bank Number: PPU 028) is published on the Statistics Canada website under the latest Information about Programs and Information Holdings chapter.
Description of statistical activity
Under the authority of the Statistics ActFootnote 1, Statistics Canada, is conducting a pilot project to acquire administrative data on human rights tribunal cases in Canadian jurisdictions on a voluntary basis. Statistics Canada is collecting data for the project on behalf of the Department of Justice. The project aims to generate information on the impacts of filing a human rights complaint on complainants, up to, and following, resolution of the matter.
Surveys such as the General Social Survey and the Canadian Legal Problems Survey provide a wealth of data on self-reported instances of discrimination. The most recent data from the General Social Survey on Social Identity found that more than 38% of Canadians reported experiencing some form of discrimination between 2015 and 2021Footnote 2. While survey data plays a crucial role in understanding the prevalence of discrimination and harassment in Canada, a vast amount of administrative data can be leveraged to advance the understanding of this critical social issue.
In Canada, every province and territory has enacted human rights legislation and a complaints mechanism. The Canadian Human Rights Act also covers sectors that fall under federal responsibility, such as the federal public service, transportation, and banking. Each administrative body collects administrative data, but only a limited amount of the data is released to the public, usually in the form of annual reports. This administrative data could inform policy and program decision-making at federal, provincial, and territorial levels, in efforts to address discrimination issues related to the Canadian Human Rights Act.
The administrative data collected through the pilot project will be integrated with other information including Census data, tax data, justice data (police and criminal courts) and health data (ambulatory care, hospitalization, and mortality). Statistics Canada's microdata linkage and related statistical activities were assessed in Statistics Canada's Generic Privacy Impact AssessmentFootnote 3. All data linkage activities are subject to established governanceFootnote 4, and are assessed against Statistics Canada's principles of necessity and proportionalityFootnote 5. All approved linkages are published on Statistics Canada's websiteFootnote 6. All linked data will remain at Statistics Canada and the data will be used by Statistics Canada to produce analytical outputs for Justice Canada and the data providers, in the form of custom tables, fact sheets, and an analytical report. Confidentiality rules will be applied to all products to there is no possibility of re-identification of individuals.
More specifically, the project will aim to provide information on the characteristics of complainants of discriminationFootnote 7 and harassmentFootnote 8. It will also outline the outcomes of the complaints across social markers, which includes health, criminal justice system involvement, income and other demographics (relationship status, employment status, etc.).
The type of information being requested includes personal information about the complainant and information about the human rights complaint. The final list of variables and the reference periods of the data will be determined once the human rights jurisdictions' needs are established, and may differ between jurisdictions. It should be noted that the acquisition of these data, as well as the dissemination of analytical results, will be the outcome of partnerships developed with the jurisdictions that collect and act as stewards of these data. As a result, consultations with these jurisdictions are necessary prior to any data acquisition to ensure that only the required variables for this pilot project are provided to answer the research objectives.
Variables (microdata) to be collected include:
Personal identifiers:
- First name
- Last name
- Date of birth
- Phone number
- Email address
- Mailing address (including postal code)
Information about the human rights case:
- Case ID or file number (if available)
- Date the act of discrimination was committed
- Case filing date
- Area of discrimination
- Grounds for discrimination
- Case commencement date
- Relief sought in the case
- Case outcome
- Case closure date
- Whether an appeal was filed or not
- Outcome of appeal
- Whether there is legal representation or not
The data obtained from this pilot project will also provide a better understanding of complainants' circumstances, including whether certain groups of people are more likely to be impacted by harassment and discrimination than others. The use of record linkage will reduce burdening the complainant compared to collecting additional information from the complainants. The insights generated from the project will provide a better understanding of the magnitude of impacts on these individuals so that patterns can be recognized and in turn improve processes and/or outcomes. Information that allows us to accurately characterize the issues faced by complainants can provide value to those who have filed complaints or will file complaints in the future, as well as Canadians generally. These benefits are described below under Necessity and Proportionality.
Reason for supplement
While the Generic Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) addresses most of the privacy and security risks related to statistical activities conducted by Statistics Canada, this supplement was developed due to the breadth (both in terms of the number of variables being collected as well as the wide jurisdictional coverage) and overall sensitivity of the personal information being requested with relation to the affected individuals. As is the case with all PIAs, Statistics Canada's privacy framework ensures that elements of privacy protection and privacy controls are documented and applied.
Necessity and Proportionality
The collection of personal information for the Human Rights Tribunal pilot project can be justified against Statistics Canada's Necessity and Proportionality Framework:
Necessity
Human rights continue to be a topic featured in the news at local, provincial, and national levels. A recent media scan conducted by the Centre for Social Data Insights and Innovation (CSDID) found that coverage surrounding human rights complaints has focused on themes such as Indigenous rights (particularly at the federal level), complaints on the grounds of disability, race and gender and the implications experienced by individuals after they file a complaint with a provincial or federal human rights body. However, the lack of reliable, consistent, and comparable data about human rights complaints makes it difficult for Canadians, policymakers, human rights advocates, and researchers to assess the trends and issues surrounding human rights complaints in Canada.
Given the long and successful history of collaboration between the two departments, the Department of Justice Canada approached Statistics Canada (StatCan) to launch a new initiative focusing on human rights complaints in Canada. This pilot project proposes to collect data from four tribunals and/or commissions which would provide valuable new insights at federal and provincial levels. The project will attempt to generate information on the impacts of filing a human rights complaint on complainants, up to, and following, resolution of the matter. The research questions driving this proposed pilot project focus on identifying the characteristics of complainants of discrimination and harassment, and shedding light on the outcomes (e.g., health, incomes, employment and social assistance, criminal justice system involvement, and other demographics) for complainants who file human rights complaints. It will be useful to know which social services are being leveraged by these individuals so that the jurisdictions can better determine where to best place support.
By collecting these datasets and integrating them with other data sets via the Social Data Linkage Environment (SDLE)Footnote 9, there is a significant opportunity to contribute to an improved body of knowledge about the prevalence, nature, and impact of filing a human rights complaint. The advantage of such a project is its ability to move past anecdotes about human rights and provide each tribunal or commission with robust data about the conditions that may contribute to and result from filing a human rights complaint. Research that accurately characterizes the issues faced by tribunals, commissions and complainants can provide value to current and future members of all groups, as well as Canadians in general.
These data could assist decision-makers in advocating for more resources to better support parties during the process, address the complaint resolution mechanisms, and implement processes to address the lengthy periods and/or delays that could be monitored with prospective data capture. In addition, a successful demonstration of the pilot project could also serve as a model to onboard other jurisdictions towards the potential development of a sustainable national database should there be interest. Ultimately, this work would facilitate better evidence-based decision-making at local, provincial, and national levels.
Effectiveness - Working assumptions
The project team identified potential partner jurisdictions and conducted consultations to discuss the project. At the time of the development of this assessment, consultations were ongoing with British Columbia's Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT), Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) and Tribunal (AHRT), the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) and the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).
The AHRC and AHRT and the CHRC have confirmed the willingness to provide the data to support the project. CHRT manifested its support for the project, indicating that they need to obtain approval from their own information providers before proceeding. The BCHRT are willing to provide the information, however, capacity limitations on their side prevent them for doing so at this time. StatCan will continue to work with these partners to mitigate the existing impediments and obtain access to their data in the near future.
For the purpose of this project, Statistics Canada is acquiring microdata related to the complaints process and the individuals involved. The focus of the project pertains specifically to the human rights complaints process as governed by provincial tribunals, CHRT and CHRC.
Some of this information may be publicly available at an aggregate level. However, microdata is being requested for this initiative and is not generally available to the public.
The data will provide insights to better characterize the individuals who file human rights complaints and the outcome(s) of filing a complaint. Once linked within the SDLE, these data will allow for deeper analysis of demographics and social system interactions of those who file human rights complaints. By combining these administrative data sets with other data sets linked within the SDLE, Statistics Canada will be able to provide the Department of Justice Canada and partner jurisdictions with information needed to address their research questions on the prevalence of complaints, characteristics of complainants and the impacts of filing human rights complaints.
Proportionality
Consideration was given to the inclusion of data for complaints filed by, or on behalf of, minors. As most of the human rights complaints are in and around the workplace and harassment, it is not foreseen that much data will contain information on minors. Should there be a decision to proceed to collect information on minors from the human rights bodies, the SPIA will be updated accordingly to address this collection.
As administrative data, there are the usual limitations to the data in terms of quality, most specifically that these are limited – by their nature – to reported human rights complaints. Additionally, the data coming from the jurisdictions will follow standard, documented concepts and definitions to aid interpretability. Coherence between sources from different jurisdictions will need to be part of discussions with these partners.
Statistics Canada will produce all analytical outputs and will ensure that all results are vetted to prevent disclosure of confidential information. Furthermore, Statistics Canada will ensure there is a balanced and informed research approach which considers the context of complaints.
Internal access will be given only to Statistics Canada employees who have an approved need to access the data for their analytical work.
The personal identifiable information will be treated as described above in Section 2 and the information contained in the project's files will be retained in accordance with Statistics Canada's data sharing agreement with each participating jurisdiction, and their individual stipulated terms.
Alternatives
A very small part of the population files human rights complaints. The use of a general population survey would require a very large sample size to ensure this sub-population is reached, thus placing burden on Canadians who would be out of scope for the survey and incurring significant costs. A targeted survey that collects information directly from the individuals concerned would be feasible but would require the use of the same administrative files to identify and contact these individuals for participation in the survey.
Additionally, the survey questions would ask for the information elements already captured in the administrative records. Asking for the information that can be obtained through linkage would also be burdensome and would likely yield lower quality, especially in accuracy due to recall errors. However, consent to link could simply be sought. This would reduce the burden but would still require linkage as well as increased collection costs and tracing of individuals who may have moved in the interim (this worsens with the more years of data that are brought into the project). There would then be the potential for significant bias from non-contact or nonresponse in collection as well as non-consent to linkage.
Overall, a survey of this type is not recommended over microdata linkage, as the only reasonable and cost-effective method to identify the profile of individuals in terms of understanding social, economic, health, and demographic trends related to housing issues and insecurity.
Mitigation factors
The overall risk of harm to the survey respondents has been deemed manageable with existing Statistics Canada safeguards that are described in Statistics Canada's Generic Privacy Impact Assessment, as well as with the following measures:
The acquisition of these data, as well as the dissemination of analytical results, will be the outcome of partnerships developed with the jurisdictions that collect and house these data. These organizations have strict policies around the use of their data. As a result, many conversations have taken and will continue to take place between Statistics Canada and these organizations prior to this data acquisition in order to ensure that only the necessary data variables required to answer the research objectives will be provided.
Personal identifiers are required and will only be used to integrate the human rights complaints data with other Statistics Canada data holdings. Upon receipt of the files, the project team will store the identifiable data separately from the analytical information. An anonymized person key will replace any identifiable information on the analytical files.
In addition, Statistics Canada's Centre for Social Data Integration and Development will continue to ensure that all Statistics Canada directives are adopted and followed for acquiring and integrating alternative data into statistical programs. The team is also required to release an administrative data request for information where we publicly post this request for data on the Statistics Canada website, informing the general public and allowing them the opportunity to review and respond with any questions or concerns.
Conclusion
This assessment concludes that, with the existing Statistics Canada safeguards, any remaining risks are such that Statistics Canada is prepared to accept and manage the risk.
Formal approval
This Supplementary Privacy Impact Assessment has been reviewed and recommended for approval by Statistics Canada's Chief Privacy Officer, Director General for Modern Statistical Methods and Data Science, and Assistant Chief Statistician for Social, Health and Labour Statistics.
The Chief Statistician of Canada has the authority for section 10 of the Privacy Act for Statistics Canada, and is responsible for the Agency's operations, including the program area mentioned in this Supplementary Privacy Impact Assessment.
This Privacy Impact Assessment has been approved by the Chief Statistician of Canada.