ARCHIVED - Common Look and Feel Standards - Crosswalk Table Policy Requirements - Email

All GC Web sites must provide users with a means of contacting institutions/individuals via electronic mail options.

The institution implements a Contact Us page that respects the public's right to provide feedback on policies, programs, services and initiatives as outlined in the Communications Policy of the Government of Canada and ensures that electronic communications conform to the requirements of the Official Languages Act, the Access to Information Act, the Privacy Act and the relevant Treasury Board policies, including the Official Languages Policies, Policy on the Management of Government Information and the Privacy and Data Protection Policy.

The Contact Us page provides a means for site visitors to send electronic mail and to find the information necessary to contact the institution through other channels, including by telephone, teletypewriter, facsimile telephone and civic and postal addresses. The institution must provide relevant contact information, including information that could assist individuals with disabilities or special needs.

Where available, service standards must be provided to site visitors so that they understand the process and know what to expect when requesting service. The institution must provide links to frequently requested material or resources, such as frequently asked questions, site maps, A to Z indices, and employee directories.

Personal information collected via email and Web forms is subject to the Privacy Act. Refer to requirement 12 for details on the personal information collection statement. Web site visitors must also be reminded that, unless otherwise identified, these are not secure forms of transmission and therefore they must not transmit sensitive personal information.

All outgoing email messages sent by GC employees must include the sender's name, institution, telephone and fax numbers with area code and extension numbers, postal and email addresses. Where an email address serves a program or service rather than an individual, contact information must include the institutional name, postal and email address, telephone and fax numbers.

The institution respects the requirements of the Federal Identity Program policy and Official Languages Policies by ensuring that email messages sent by its employees to all non-Government of Canada recipients include a signature block in both official languages that contains the elements described in requirements 3.1.1 to 3.1.10.

Where an email address serves a program or service rather than an individual, email messages must include a signature block in both official languages that contains the elements described in requirements 3.2.1 to 3.2.8.

Directive on the Use of Official Languages in Electronic Communications

In a signature block, the information appears in both official languages in the prescribed order.

Prescribed order is defined as: Signature block: When the two official languages must be used together, they appear in the following sequence: French first for an employee of an office or facility located in Quebec, and English first for an employee of an office or facility located elsewhere in Canada.

All outgoing email messages by GC employees must demonstrate a consistent application of the "Canada" wordmark and institutional signature.

Where an institution's email system supports the incorporation of visual identifiers ("Canada" wordmark and the institutional signature) in an accessible manner, the institution must include the identifiers in the signature area of email messages.

It is acknowledged that technological incompatibility between the sender and the recipient's email systems might cause the institutional signature and the "Canada" wordmark to be stripped from email messages.

All GC Web sites must incorporate an automatic acknowledgement feature to assure users their correspondence has been received.

The institution must ensure that electronic correspondence is acknowledged in a timely manner. When site visitors successfully submit a contact form, they must be informed that the comment has been received, and this is easily achieved through a Web page. When site visitors contact the institution through one of its generic email accounts, automatic acknowledgement must be sent indicating that their correspondence has been received. The response to the email is prepared at the discretion of the institution.

When site visitors contact an employee of the institution directly, there is no requirement for an auto-acknowledgement, as site visitors can follow up directly if a response is not forthcoming and are automatically notified if their email cannot be delivered for some technical reason.

Forms are another means of providing users with a means of contact. ...

Refer to CLF Toolbox

December 2002
It is important to remember to include the institution's applied title found at ...
The inclusion of "Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada" is recommended ...

• 3.1.9 The institution's applied title. The Federal Identity Program provides a listing of titles of federal organizations.
• 3.1.10 The text "Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada".

July 2000

A good practice would be to include a signature block when email is being sent within the department ...

Not an Internet issue

June 2003

The Executive Summary of the email assessment, completed by the CLF E‑mail Working Group, highlights the results of the assessment and their recommendations.

Conflicts with Part 4, R3.2

December 2002

An assessment by the CLF Email Working Group of various email software applications in use across federal institutions has been undertaken. As a result, for those email systems that cannot display the graphical elements ("Canada" wordmark and the institutional signature) in an accessible manner (e.g., HTML and alt text), it is important to include the institution's applied title in both official languages in the signature block of every employee. This applies to the signature block of employees of bilingual and unilingual designated regions. For a list of bilingual applied titles, please refer to Titles of federal organizations (March 12, 1998). For additional information on the use of applied titles and the use of the words "Government of Canada" in signature blocks, please refer to the Best Practice for CLF Standard 4.2.

• 3.1.9 The institution's applied title. The Federal Identity Program provides a listing of titles of federal organizations.
• 3.1.10 The text "Government of Canada | Gouvernement du Canada".

July 2000

To ensure consistency in application, this initiative should be managed by mail and/or systems administrators rather than by individual GC employees.

It should be noted that technological incompatibility between the sender and the recipient's email systems might cause the institutional signature and the "Canada" wordmark to be stripped from email messages.

To ensure consistency in application, fulfillment of the requirements outlined in 3.1, 3.2 and 3.3 above must be managed by the institution's mail system administrators rather than by individual employees, where feasible.

If the individual is out of the office ... (generic email)

No longer relevant since automatic reply is not required for all emails, just for legitimate correspondence.