Information & Ethics committee  If I may, from our perspective, as suggested earlier and to reinforce that point, from what we understand, the department decided to purchase this to ensure that we had the tools necessary should we need them at a certain point in time. From our perspective, that's what we've done.

Information & Ethics committee  Definitely. From our perspective, as I discussed before, Pierre and I are new in the role, and this is definitely something we want to continue exploring and looking into further.

Information & Ethics committee  No. From our perspective, we definitely can.

Information & Ethics committee  From our perspective, I have no problem doing this because we are proactively looking at what we can do in that space. I feel comfortable doing so given that we have the—

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. From our perspective, this is our mandate, and we do what we can to monitor and ensure that they are protected.

Information & Ethics committee  I can turn it to Pierre.

Information & Ethics committee  Thanks for the question. Hopefully I have understood it. From our perspective, I'll state the facts as I know them, and hopefully that will address your understanding. We purchased the tool and we have it, and from my understanding we've had it since 2018. The tool has been available to us but has never been used.

Information & Ethics committee  I cannot speak for—

Information & Ethics committee  We don't.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the question. Our department uses various tools, mechanisms and protocols. I must say that we don't always need to use these tools to conduct investigations. The department's internal investigations concern the actions of public servants, for example. The various tools include our computer investigation tool, which is available as needed.

Information & Ethics committee  If we were to use it, we would have the security protocol and the mandate to do so. However, before using the tool, we would make sure to carry out a privacy impact assessment.

Information & Ethics committee  To my knowledge, at the time, the tool was authorized by the chief information officer, Mr. Pelletier's current position, after a discussion with the department's head of security.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, absolutely. We follow the protocols in place before proceeding. We purchased the tool through Shared Services Canada, after discussions, in keeping with the protocols and based on the information that we had.

Information & Ethics committee  The monitoring system makes sure that everything is in place. These tools are used if we have a security mandate to look at a case a bit more closely.

Information & Ethics committee  It involves determining whether someone is disclosing information that falls within the definition set out in our security mandate. We would then collect the information necessary to meet these needs.