Evidence of meeting #145 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Frank Caputo Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
To the best of your knowledge, did any of your clients have any losses as a result of this?
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
We are not aware of any impact to our clients as a result of this incident.
Conservative
Frank Caputo Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Do you know exactly how many clients were impacted by this?
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
We do not know how many Canadians may have been impacted by this, no.
Conservative
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
No, I have nothing that is based on anything factual.
Conservative
Frank Caputo Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Have you made safety recommendations to CRA based on what happened on your end?
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
Yes, we provided a series of recommendations to CRA in August of this year. Our understanding is that CRA is continuing to review them, and we're looking forward to engaging with them as soon as we possibly can.
Conservative
Frank Caputo Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Has CRA given you an update as to whether or not they will be accepting them and where the progress is?
My concern is this. We're now in December. These were made in August. We don't want to be in a situation where we're here again. I'm just wondering—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Mr. Caputo, I'm sorry, but your time is up.
Mr. Fisher, go ahead for six minutes, please.
December 12th, 2024 / 4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Peter, it's nice to meet you today. Thanks for being here.
Some of the things that are asked might be things that were asked and phrased in different ways but are all going to be about the same topic.
In the letter you sent to our committee, H&R Block Canada said, “H&R Block Canada's data, systems, and software were not compromised”.
I'm interested in the codes that are assigned to your tax preparer offices. Tell the committee a little bit about your internal strategies and policies to ensure that there is security for those codes.
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
I will attempt to answer that to the extent possible, given that I'm unable to share quite a few specifics in relation to this question. It does bump up against our security and client privacy policies.
What I can say is that e-file IDs are issued by CRA to tax preparer offices, and the expectation is that those IDs are treated with the utmost confidentiality.
Liberal
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
No.
Liberal
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
No.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
How do you guarantee that your staff might not be the source of the leak that we're talking about today?
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
That was part of the investigation that we undertook and, as I mentioned earlier, we left no stone unturned. We did a comprehensive review of just about everything that's related to e-file ID credentials and how they are used within our organization. There was no evidence to suggest that our staff were in any way involved or responsible for what took place.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
When you're sourcing new staff, do you do criminal record checks and things like that?
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
Yes, we do criminal background checks on all of our associates.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Do you do this for everyone who comes in or only for the people who would deal with these codes?
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
We do this for everyone who comes in.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Tell me a little bit about your recruiting process, when you're going out to search for new folks, and your training process.
Associate Vice-President, Government and Stakeholder Relations, H&R Block Canada Inc.
Sure.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Could you tell us a little bit about how you would train these folks up to be in a position where they understand the importance of being in possession of this taxpayer information?