We have a twin mandate at the commission of protecting human rights and promoting them. While we are a regulator and receive complaints and participate in cases, we also have a very strong mandate to work with stakeholders to promote, to research, and to share information. In so doing, we share information with departments such as the Department of Justice and with agencies.
In the context of this research, we consulted a number of national security agencies, including Foreign Affairs, Passport Canada, CIC, and we have shared our best practices with them.
In this case it was a question of trying to have options among methods for identifying Canadians and trying to gather information to see and ensure that discretionary decisions are not taken in a way that adversely impacts upon a given group.