Evidence of meeting #16 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was documents.
A video is available from Parliament.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
We are not aware of any misuse of the SIN following a breach involving loss of personal information.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
Yes, there is sometime misuse of the SIN. As part of our regular investigations, we do investigations related to benefits. and as part of those kinds of investigation, we may come across individuals who are improperly using a SIN to get benefits.
Conservative
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
Basically, if we look at the number in the last fiscal year, we had a bit more than 4,500 investigations that led to a conclusion that there was a misuse of the social insurance number. But there were investigations associated with the potential misuse of a SIN.
Most of them—I will say three-quarters of them—were related to a benefits investigation at the same time, and about 1,400 were related to potential issues raised with SIN applications.
When we do an investigation, it is not necessarily about misuse; it could be a situation in which we have a flag in our social insurance registry, as one example, that someone is deceased and someone comes to the office to reactivate the SIN or get a new SIN card. Before providing them with their social insurance number, we refer them to our internal investigator to go further in questioning the individual and getting additional pieces of identification to confirm whether or not the person who requests the SIN issuance is the right person.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Would that classify as a deliberate or accidental...? Would it be that someone did it with intent or that it was not intentional?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
These cases could be due to errors in the server, or sometimes they could be real potential fraud. If it's real SIN fraud that could lead to other types of fraud, we refer it to the RCMP for their investigation and to validate whether there is fraud or not.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
How often does it happen that things are referred to the RCMP for prosecution?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
I don't have that information with me here.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Is it frequent, infrequent? I know that's a subjective assessment
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
I don't know.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
How are those instances discovered? Does somebody just say that something doesn't look right here, or how do you come across these?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
There are different ways. Informant leads that may come across it. As I said, it could be people coming to the office and not having the right piece of information that we're looking for. Sometimes they don't have permanent documents, or sometimes the document they are providing doesn't look like the right document.
Among other types, people may come to the office who have received a T4 for benefits that they never received. In that case we investigate the benefit that is part of it. We also investigate whether the SIN was improperly used.
Those would be examples of different ways that we can come across such cases.
An individual could come directly, telling us that they were in their view facing identity theft and were looking at getting a new social insurance number. In that case we will investigate the matter and will refer to the RCMP to determine whether there's real identity theft.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Do you have any idea of the numbers or frequency of people coming to you saying, “I think I've suffered identity theft” and wanting a new one?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
I do not directly, but I would suspect that the maximum number we have.... As I said, there are about 1,400 people we have identified as having only issues related to the SIN. I will guess that this probably means a higher number for it, but I will have to get back to that question and figure out whether we have those specific statistics.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
That's 1,400 that were referred to the RCMP for further investigation. Is that my understanding?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
These would be the cases that we would refer to the RCMP, when people say they are facing identity theft. We do not investigate identity theft. We investigate all the questions around the issuance of a new SIN, a new SIN card. We also investigate to ensure that the benefits are going to the right person.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I understand.
You don't allow it by mail anymore and maybe I missed this, but can somebody apply online for a SIN card?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
No, we cannot apply online. People have to come at the office to get a SIN card. Now, parents can apply for the social insurance number at birth as they register the birth of their child. It's a new program that is now being implemented in all provinces. That's the only way.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I just had a new granddaughter on Sunday so we're going through that as we speak.
Again, this may be outside your lane, but are you aware of the level of penalties for identity theft or misuse of SIN cards? I guess my question is if you are, do you think they're adequate? Or should they be looked at ?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
I'm not aware .... I know that there is a penalty for people misusing the SIN as it relates to the program. I don't have the details here. I can get back to you about that.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
I'm afraid that concludes your time, Mr. Hawn. Thank you very much and congratulations, Grandpa.
Next for the Liberals we have .... Actually once Mr. Andrews is back in the room, technically he is the committee member but we'd certainly be flexible enough to welcome the honourable member from Prince Edward Island, Mr. MacAulay.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
Thank you very much.
I'm a substitute on the committee but I did listen to your presentation, enjoyed it very much and thank you very much for being here.
You indicated that the SIN card is no longer issued as a card because it was so convenient to carry. What I gather from that is this great concern that people actually are not concerned enough about their own identity at times and this is why this was done. I'd just like you to elaborate a bit on that.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Integrity Services Branch, Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
People are not always aware of the risk of carrying with them a number of different identity attributes in their pocket. We do our best to increase awareness about the importance of protecting these kinds of information. As part of SIN code of practice, on the website we specifically identify what people should and should not do with their social insurance numbers.
It's one reason we decided not to produce the card anymore. People will still get their social insurance numbers when they come to the office but when they show up at the office, they receive the social insurance number on a piece of paper. That would be the only thing that we give to them.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
Thank you very much. Not to go back to the HRSDC breach but situations like that, I'd just like you to comment. The information was on small hand-held devices. Do you think that's a problem, possibly, that personal information should not be held on devices like that? I'd just like you to comment on that.