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
CBSA-ASFC_ATIP-AIPRP@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca. 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.
Contacts
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