Privacy Impact Assessment Summary - Settlement Outcomes Survey
An objective under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act is to promote the successful integration of permanent residents in Canada. Settlement is a critical step in the integration process, and to better understand how newcomers are settling, CIC is collaborating with provincial and territorial governments to undertake a settlement outcomes survey. This nationwide survey will collect information from 20,000 newcomers on their settlement experience and will be conducted in up to ten languages. The survey, which will be administered in 2012, will provide data at both the national and regional levels to assist federal, provincial and territorial governments in improving newcomer outcomes.
The Settlement Outcomes Survey will be administered by BC Stats. CIC will share personal information from its landings data with BC Stats in order for it to develop its sample frame as well as contact newcomer respondents. A Memorandum of Understanding has been developed to establish the mechanisms for sharing this personal information as well as the terms and conditions for its use and disclosure. BC Stats will anonymize the data it collects through the Settlement Outcomes Survey by removing all personal identifiers and will write anonymized reports based on analysis of these data. BC Stats will then transfer the anonymized data and anonymized reports to CIC as well as all provincial and territorial governments. At the conclusion of the initiative, BC Stats will return all personal information received from CIC and destroy any copies of this personal information in its possession.
A core Privacy Impact Assessment was conducted to identify any privacy risks associated with this information sharing. The core Privacy Impact Assessment report identified a low risk to privacy and CIC has adopted proper mitigation strategies to further reduce any risks. Mitigation actions have been completed accordingly, including Director General and Assistant Deputy Minister discussions on privacy considerations as well as the development of a Memorandum of Understanding that stipulates the terms for sharing, retention and disposal of this personal information.