Collection, Creation, Receipt

Service to Users: Objective 4

The institution collects, creates and receives only the information that is necessary to meet its operational, legislative and policy requirements.

Criterion

4.1 The information collected or generated meets the identified needs.

Questions/Practices

4.1.1 Are holdings periodically reviewed in order to determine if the information continues to meet identified needs? (MGIH policy, guideline 4.1.) Are users periodically consulted to determine if information collected, created and received continues to meet their needs? How is this done? How often is this done?

4.1.2 Where users are also information providers (i.e., they are partly self sufficient in the collection, creation and receipt of information), is the information which they gather or generate reviewed periodically to determine if it is relevant and meets identified needs? Do the holdings meet the key attributes of information (see page 10 of Guide)?

4.1.3 Does the institution periodically review the use to which information is put? Where information holdings are available to users, do they actually use them? A lot of information may be collected because a need was identified years ago. If the institution stopped collecting the information now, would any person or program be affected?

4.1.4 Legislation or policies may demand that certain information be maintained by an institution. Are legislative and institution-specific policy requirements met as to information content?

4.1.5 Is unsolicited information received from outside the institution assessed for its relevance to the institution? Is the information transmitted quickly to the part of the institution responsible for dealing with that particular subject?

Criterion

4.2 Information collection is coordinated and meets with applicable requirements.

Questions/Practices

4.2.1 Does the institution have policies and plans for information collection, creation and receipt? Are these policies and plans linked to present and future user needs and/or legislative and policy requirements?

4.2.2 Is the coordination comprehensive? Are all information collection activities planned and accounted for, including those in the regions and various organizational units? Is information collection by agents (e.g. consultants) included? Are there controls in place to ensure that information collection policies are known throughout the institution and that collection plans are reported and coordinated at an early stage?

4.2.3 Has the institution ensured that information collection conforms to the applicable standards? For example, does the institution consult the Public Opinion Research Group (Government Services Canada) regarding information collection which qualifies as, or contains a component of, public opinion research?

4.2.4 Is information periodically reviewed in order to ensure that the requirements of the Privacy Act are respected? This might be done during the annual update of personal information banks required by Section 11 of the Privacy Act. (MGIH policy, guideline 4.1.)

Service to Users: Objective 5

The institution avoids collecting, creating and receiving information that is already available in order to minimize costs and response burden. (MGIH policy, requirement 3.)

Criterion

5.1 The costs of collecting, creating and receiving information are minimized. (MGIH policy, requirement 3.)

Questions/Practices

5.1.1 Does the institution know the costs of collecting, creating and receiving the information it uses? Given that users frequently collect, create and receive information themselves, are their costs (mainly time/salaries) identified, justified and kept to a minimum?

5.1.2 Are the costs of collecting, creating and receiving information commensurate with its value to the institution and users?

5.l.3 Where the same or similar information is collected, created and received for more than one user or one group of users, have opportunities been taken to meet common information needs through joint collection, joint creation or joint receipt of information? Where duplicate collection, creation and receipt of information exists, is it operationally and cost-justified?

5.1.4 Before information is collected, created or received, are existing information holdings reviewed to determine if the information needs can be satisfied by existing holdings or readily accessible external information sources? Would the costs of acquiring new information be justified? Is the information collected, created or received by the institution actually used?

Criterion

5.2 Response burden is minimized in the collection of information. (MGIH policy, requirement 3.)

Questions/Practices

5.2.1 Have respondents been identified and profiled in terms of the detail and frequency of the information being collected from them? (i.e., does the institution know what response burden it is currently placing on respondents?)

5.2.2 Have opportunities been taken to undertake joint collection or information sharing with other institutions where feasible? (MGIH policy, requirement 3.) Where information collection does duplicate or overlap with that of other institutions, is the continuing collection of this information justified, either by the need for more detail, or the need for more up-to-date information?

Criterion

5.3 Forms meet all statutory and policy requirements (MGIH policy, requirement 4).

Questions/Practices

5.3.1 Are forms, in both paper and electronic media, reviewed before they are put into use to ensure that applicable requirements are met? By whom? Are all forms used by the institution reviewed? If not, why not?