Introduction
Innovation is increasingly essential for an effective response to and recovery from the COVID‑19 pandemic, particularly as it relates to remote and hybrid work environments. As such, AAFC’s Recruitment and Collaborative Staffing Division (RCS) needed technology designed with the purpose of supporting fast-changing organizational needs for recruitment and talent assessment. While the advent of remote work capabilities has brought with it the ability to hire individuals from across the country, it has also required adaptation to non-traditional hiring processes using applications such as Vidcruiter.
Objective
VidCruiter is a third-party hosted cloud solution that offers a suite of assessment applications which can facilitate scheduling; testing against merit criteria established by the Hiring Manager; provide a central repository of the information in a digital platform; enable recorded video/audio of live interviews; and includes a reference check component. Each of these elements enable innovative measures for AAFC staffing needs in a hybrid work environment, while further advancing efforts to ensure diverse and inclusive hiring practices.
Description
The VidCruiter suite of applications records and stores personal information to assess candidates via virtual staffing tools. With this remote tool, AAFC staffing advisors can conduct interviews with individuals and complete reference checks, all of which are part of the current staffing process. However, the application has a built-in video recording feature allowing staffing advisors to review and assess individual responses against the merit criteria, which represents a new collection of personal information, currently not addressed by the existing Standard Personal Information Bank (S-PIB) PSE 902 Staffing. As such, a Privacy Risk Assessment (PIA) was completed and a new PIB has been created in accordance with article 6.2 of the Directive on Privacy Impact Assessments.
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 privacy notice statements; limiting collection, access to and use of personal information; increasing privacy training for staff and the addition of a new Personal Information Bank.
For further information please contact:
Privacy Compliance, Access to Information and Privacy
Tower 7, 10th Floor
1341 Baseline Road
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0C5
Email: aafc.atip-aiprp.aac@agr.gc.ca