Update on CBSA's ability to process ATIP requests electronically

OTTAWA, ON, May 3, 2024 /CNW/ - Today, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) provided an update on its ability to process Access to Information and Privacy (ATIP) requests electronically, after information stored on 40 CBSA servers was made inaccessible during infrastructure maintenance performed by Shared Services Canada (SSC) on February 8, 2024.

Since the previous update on February 21, 2024, SSC and CBSA have been working together and engaging with experts across the government and private sector vendors of the affected systems to understand the issue, the impacts and to work on solutions.

The CBSA has returned to full capacity of processing between 1,000 and 1,200 requests per week and will continue to bolster its capacity to process requests impacted by the situation. Individuals can continue to make new ATIP requests through the online portal.

When the information became inaccessible on February 8, 2024, there were approximately 16,000 unanswered requests. With the assistance of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, 4,000 pending/open requests were recovered and are in progress.

No requester information or records collected to respond to requests has been lost. However, because all the data or information was recovered in a large single package without context or framework, it's impossible to decipher which requests it corresponds to.

For this reason, people who submitted an ATIP request between September 2021 and November 2023 and who have not yet received a response are invited to file a new request to the CBSA by email at [email protected]. We ask that requesters provide the original request that they submitted, or a copy of the confirmation email they received after their original submission. The CBSA will waive the $5 application fee and will process the requests as a priority. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

The CBSA continues to work closely with SSC, the Information Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner to ensure that the access rights of all requesters are respected.

Questions related to CBSA ATIP requests should be directed to CBSA Media Relations, while those related to Government of Canada information technology infrastructure should be directed to SSC Media Relations.

SOURCE Canada Border Services Agency