Human Resources committee  We do not preclude, Chair, that the period could be extended. We will be monitoring and evaluating at that time what has occurred over this period. On the basis of a risk assessment, we do not preclude that it would not be extended.

Human Resources committee  No, I wouldn't, and I don't want to be misunderstood as in any way saying that what occurred was acceptable. It wasn't, but with the information we had at the time that we had it, we believe we acted appropriately with respect to our protocols for the Privacy Commissioner. We w

Human Resources committee  Chair, first I need to say that we don't have the results of the investigation with respect either to certainty about the individuals involved or the circumstances. Therefore, to go further than that would be conjecture. Mr. McColeman will understand that I won't do that. I can

Human Resources committee  Again, I don't want to stray too far, Chair, into the realm of conjecture, but I think I can say that as a consequence of deepening our culture and our training and our awareness of these issues, one ought to be able to expect a higher standard in the future. As I indicated befo

Human Resources committee  My colleagues can elaborate, but subject to anything we may learn in the investigation, it seems to us that given the requirement for encryption and the fact that the information transferred was not encrypted, it's pretty clear that the policy was not followed. The policy was i

Human Resources committee  Mr. Chair, I don't think we can ever offer guarantees. What we can offer is the assurance that, as Mr. Parker has said, we are monitoring things extremely closely, both through the Equifax arrangement and through the annotations in the social insurance register, to spot any suspi

Human Resources committee  I think, Mr. Chair, we understood the question to be an elaboration of the measures that we have taken in response to these incidents which, as I understood it, was included in the order.

Human Resources committee  Indeed there is. The obligations of employees, Chair, in regard to the handling of personal information are set out in the code of ethics. There's a standard code of ethics for the public service overall, which is in the domain of the Treasury Board, and then each department take

Human Resources committee  The questions, Chair, that we put to employees were intended to canvass all possibilities about what may have happened. We included among those possibilities inappropriate handling of the hard drive. That was in no way intended to suggest that we would find that behaviour accep

Human Resources committee  We certainly don't depend on miracles. We were being diligent about the search, and when we came to the conclusion or the strong supposition that the material was not likely to be found, you'll recall that I said we continued even after that to search exhaustively. We informed th

Human Resources committee  I informed the minister quite early on that we were engaged in this search, and we kept the minister informed about the involvement of the Privacy Commissioner and about every critical step of our investigation and about what we were learning as we went. Could I ask my colleagu

Human Resources committee  We did not make any assumptions, and even now we have not made assumptions, about precisely what happened. That is why investigations have been undertaken, including our own internal investigation. We can say—and the committee will appreciate that it's not possible to prove a ne

Human Resources committee  Ministers are responsible to Parliament, Chair, for ultimately all matters within their jurisdiction, including the policies of the government and the appropriate conduct of officials in their departments. By convention and in many cases by formal instrument of delegation, those

Human Resources committee  I would say, Chair, that any incident involving the compromise of personal information is not acceptable. I cannot imagine, being informed of the situation of even one Canadian's personal information having not been properly handled or having been compromised, that I would say it

Human Resources committee  I don't believe, Chair, that I used the words "only now". I explained what we have done in response to this incident. Based on what we have learned from this incident, we have strengthened those policies, procedures, and practices. I would not agree, respectfully, with any char