Privacy Impact Assessment Summary: e-Client Application Status

The e-Client Application Status (e-CAS) application will provide certain categories of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) clients with an Internet channel to obtain information from any world location on the status of five types of IRCC client applications. The purpose of the project is to reduce some of the routine telephone calls to the IRCC Call Centre and to improve customer service. The types of applications whose status is available through e-CAS are:

• Application to sponsor a member of the family class;
• Application for permanent residence from within or outside Canada;
• Application for a permanent resident card;
• Application for a grant of Canadian citizenship; and
• Application for a proof of Canadian citizenship.

To query the status of a client’s application, the client must first be authenticated by entering certain information:

• An identification number such as client ID, file number or receipt number
• Surname
• Date of birth
• Country of birth

The client must correctly enter all four of the authentication data fields for authentication to take place.

e-CAS also displays the current mailing address (within or outside Canada) of the client.

The main privacy issues identified deal with the inability to track and act on a client’s consent for the disclosure of personal information and the lack of restricted access to a client’s personal information. However, clients have the option of selecting a checkbox to remove their information from the Internet should they not wish it to be available through e-CAS. While the consent privacy issue was identified as part of the e-CAS Privacy Impact Assessment, this business issue is not new to IRCC.

The privacy risks identified as part of this assessment were moderate and a mitigation plan has been implemented to deal with the issues.

Features