Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) recently announced a management action plan to streamline and modernize the access to information and privacy systems, processes and digital infrastructure. This was in response to the thousands of immigrant applicants who have been asking the Canadian government to improve transparency in their immigration system.
Why Was the Management Action Plan Introduced?
The Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) management action plan will expand the capacity of the MyAccount portal to provide users with access to information related to the status of their individual case file and clear, concise explanations on why a particular application was refused. The IRCC aims to increase transparency and availability of information to the applicants as it takes its responsibility under the ATIP Act seriously.
The IRCC introduced the MyAccount portal to increase processing efficiency. The number of outstanding access-to-information requests between January 2020 to July 2020 was reduced from 8,881 to 1,330 or by 85% by complying with the processing timelines. On-time responses to such requests also improved 75% from 64%.
