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.
AgriInvest is a savings account program managed by the Farm Income Programs Directorate (FIPD) of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) that provides coverage to producers for small income declines, and supports investments that help mitigate risks or improve market income. Starting with the 2007 program year, AgriInvest replaced the coverage previously provided under the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization (CAIS) program for margin declines of less than 15 percent of a participant's reference margin (that is, their average margin from previous years). A new application system was developed for delivery of the AgriInvest program.
The AgriInvest program provides funds from the Government of Canada (GoC) to participants by matching a participant's deposits. Participants deposit funds into an AgriInvest account and receive a matching government contribution. Money accumulates in the accounts until the participant initiates a withdrawal or the maximum account balance is exceeded.
The AgriInvest program is available to individuals, partners in a partnership, co-operatives, corporations, estates, trusts, limited partnerships, and landlords in a joint venture. Eligible participants must have reported farming income (or loss) for tax purposes, and must have been engaged in farming in the program year. For individual participants, the AgriInvest application form is part of the tax filing process with Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) (except in the province of Quebec, which is not within the scope of this report).
Objective
As the AgriInvest program 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 the AgriInvest program. This included AAFC's collection, use, retention, disclosure and disposition of personal information in the context of AgriInvest. In the province of Quebec, the program is delivered by the provincial agricultural ministry, and was not included in 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 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