Evidence of meeting #145 for Public Safety and National Security in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was enforcement.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Correct.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
—so you're relying on others to be gathering that information based on certain metrics, I guess, that you have helped them put out to try to figure out what their levels are, and what information they would have to seek out. Then they would provide it to you. Is that essentially—
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
If I may, all the reporting that is required is set out in legislation or regulations.
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
They must legally report those types of transactions to us.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Do you provide them with any guidance? I thought I understood from some of your earlier testimony that you provide some guidance to them as to what might be a suspicious transaction, or how to fill out your reports, and that type of thing.
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Correct.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Then it's on them to develop their own algorithms or their own way of searching out what information they would be providing to you.
4:15 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Correct.
4:15 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Do you notice a difference in the quality of the information? Are different institutions better set up to provide you with that information?
For example, there are banks, and then there are street corners—moneylending, quick paycheque types of systems. Do you have the same quality of information coming from both of those types of institutions?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
No. Generally speaking the quality of the reporting we receive as well as the quantity—close to 90% of our reports come from our big major banks—tend to be reflective of their abilities, capabilities and their maturity, I think.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Different institutions might have different levels of reporting or quality.
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Correct.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Would some of these institutions be outsourcing how this information is gathered by other parties? Some smaller institutions might not have strong in-house capacity. Are some of them outsourcing that capacity?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
They can, yes.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
I think in a few questions we've been talking about the individuals. There is also tracking of individuals' transactions as part of these algorithms to gather up that information and to see if there's something suspicious and if there is, to move it over to you.
Do you provide any advice on how to make sure that information is kept protected and intact?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Do you mean on their end or on our end?
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
On their end, no, we don't specifically. We do have record-keeping requirements, but how they protect that is really up to them in terms of how they institute their own protections of private data.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
On your end, because you get a large number of financial reports—I think you said 25 million—how is that information protected as well?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
It's done extremely well. We have very stringent security, both technical and personal security. We're talking about insider threats as well. Everybody at FINTRAC from the clerk in the mailroom to the director has to have a very high level of security, and it's reviewed. Our intelligence database is air gapped so no one has access to that. We're also reviewed every two years by the Privacy Commissioner to ensure that what we disclose is only what we are legally allowed to disclose.
We also have very strong retention and disposition policies in place whereby we segregate and dispose of reports that we're not allowed to keep after a 10-year period and so forth. We have extremely strong policies and procedures on the protection of privacy because having those is key to the existence and ability of FINTRAC to do its job.
4:20 p.m.
Liberal
Julie Dabrusin Liberal Toronto—Danforth, ON
Because we're talking about cybersecurity, have you noticed an increase in perhaps outsider probes or attacks trying to get the FINTRAC information that you have gathered? Has there been any uptick on that?
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
No.
4:20 p.m.
Deputy Director, Operations, Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada
Yes, and we have never had a breach.