Introduction
Ministers of Agriculture from across the country have agreed to Growing Forward, a market-driven vision for Canada's agriculture, agri-food and agri-based products industry in every region of the country. For producers, this means a new suite of business risk management programs to help manage the risks of doing business.
AgriStability is a margin-based program that provides income support when a participant experiences larger margin declines. Program payments are based on a decline in a farm's current year margin (allowable income minus the allowable expense in a given year) compared to an average historical margin (that is, reference margin). Starting with the 2007 program year, AgriStability replaced the coverage previously provided under the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization (CAIS) program for margin declines over 15 percent of a participant's reference margin.
Objective
As AgriStability involves the collection and management of personal information, a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) was conducted to determine if there were any privacy risks, and if so, to make recommendations for their resolution or mitigation.
Description
The scope of the PIA was restricted to the business process and basic data flows of personal information associated with AgriStability. This included Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's collection, use, retention, disclosure and disposition of personal information in the context of AgriStability. Processes specific to the provincial delivery of the Program in those provinces which deliver the Program themselves (that is, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island) were not within the scope of the PIA.
Conclusion
As a result of the PIA, measures have been determined to mitigate any risks associated with the collection of personal information. These include: strengthening agreements, limiting the collection, access and use of personal information, increasing privacy training for staff and the revision of Personal Information Bank details.
For further information please contact:
Access to Information and Privacy
Tower 4, 5th Floor
1341 Baseline Road, Room 264
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0C5
Telephone: 613-773-1390
Facsimile: 613-773-1380
Email: aafc.atip-aiprp.aac@agr.gc.ca