Thank you.
Those are very good questions. There's no doubt that the House of Commons as a symbol of Parliament is regularly identified in potential security threats. Every threat you can find out there, Parliament is noted somewhere because of the symbol of Parliament.
We are, as mentioned by Madam O'Brien, working very closely with all kinds of partners, such as CSE. We're working with RCMP. We are working also with the industry. We've highlighted a number of scenarios, technologies, and layers that we have to protect the environment, and we rely on the industry in terms of also bringing a third dimension to the threats, what's going on, and what we should be preparing ourselves for. Therefore, as Kevin does on physical security, every day we assess those threats, every day we evaluate the situation.
Around three or four years ago the board approved the creation of an IT security team, which we have implemented. We have put in place a lot of new technologies and mechanisms to secure the environment.
For us, when something happens like it did two or three weeks ago, there's no doubt that at that point we strengthen our monitoring activities based on the threats. We have a lot of alarms. We follow up on alarms. We follow up on notices. We make sure that we reinforce our security measures. We make sure that we make adjustments to our protocols of the day. A good example of that is the major spoofing that happened to the Treasury Board last year. Immediately, we were ahead of the game to analyze this, and there was actually no incident to Parliament Hill following that incident.
We also adjusted our BCM strategies, such as how to deal with international threats, as an example. If need be, I can export my website somewhere else to protect the campus. There are all kinds of strategies behind the scenes that are possible, and we can act very rapidly. There's no doubt we always maintain a very close meeting with our other officials, with CSE and others, to make sure we can inspire ourselves on everything that is possible to minimize the impact.
The bottom line for me, however, is the way we make decisions. My job is to provide access to services to all members of Parliament, to provide transparency, and to make sure I eliminate all those stresses. We reject 70%, I would say, of all e-mails sent to Parliament before they enter Parliament Hill. And beyond that, we provide members with tools to identify spam, to try to filter that, and to put rules in place. At the end of the day, I still believe I need to leave the members with the flexibility that they need to operate.
Concerning the riding offices, there's no doubt that in Ottawa it's a secure environment. It's well protected. We provide all kinds of tools to members in their ridings. However, in your ridings, you've made the decision. You've set up your environment and how you want to work. Therefore, I can only be there to help, to advise, to suggest that you use a secure tool we provide you with. I have not a lot of control when you are in your constituency, but we always remain available to help you this way.
In term of the recommendation, there's no doubt that the acceptable use policy gives you a good framework in the ways you operate. There's no doubt about it in terms of how to better use the IT resource on Parliament Hill. But the same things can apply with your staff in your riding and how you behave yourself in your riding. They're good guidelines. At the same time, as we always say, it's so essential to separate your job as a member from your personal life. Very often we try as much to keep that totally separate—how you set up your house, your families, how you decide to create other Internet access, having your own private e-mail accessibilities, outside of the environment of the House of Commons. It's also a strong recommendation. It's exactly what I do for myself.
However, security is evolving every day. It's a question of every day we need to make.... It's like peeling an onion. There's always something new to discover. The strength that we have is the ability to react. I think we have proved that several times. And there's the board has supported us and this committee on all of the investments we've made in security technology over the last ten years.