Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The reason we decided to make that the theme of this report is, first of all, that it comes up in a number of the audits that we're reporting on in the spring audits. It also it has been something that I've particularly noticed over the four-plus years I have been in this role. It seems to be something that comes up in a lot of different audits we have done.
We are now at a stage where people expect there to be data that is useful, data that can be analyzed, and data that can help governments identify trends to improve their programs, but we're seeing a number of problems in the way that data is collected.
Again, it really comes down, first of all, to making sure departments understand what data they need to collect, why they need to collect it, and what they're going to use it for. Once they have determined that, then they need to have an approach in place that makes sure that they are storing the data in a way that it can be accessed and in a way that ensures that the data is accurate so that it can be used for what they want it to be used for.
Obviously there are a lot of different aspects to this. In some instances there is data that the government is not collecting that they could collect that would help them to analyze and understand programs better, but what we've been putting our emphasis on is simply on the data that the government is already collecting and is already storing in some way, and we're trying to put an emphasis on making sure that at least that data is properly managed.
There is then the bigger issue about whether there should be more data and more sophisticated systems, but we're really trying to say that at the very basic level, it is just making sure that the data that's being collected now is of sufficient quality that it can be used.
Also, there needs to be appropriate attention on the sharing of that data—respecting privacy requirements, of course, but on sharing that data among different departments and programs in cases where that data can help multiple programs, and I think we've seen that problem in the case of the lack of sharing of information between the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada in terms of detecting citizenship fraud.
Trying to put it in a nutshell, that would be the way I would describe the problem.