Date: November 2022
Program manager: Director, Investment, Science and Technology Division (ISTD)
Director General, Economy-wide Statistics Branch
Reference to Personal Information Bank (PIB):
Personal information collected through the Canadian Internet Use Survey is described in Statistics Canada's "Special Surveys" Personal Information Bank. The Personal Information Bank refers to information collected through Statistics Canada's ad hoc surveys, which do not form part of the regular survey taking activity of the Agency. They cover a variety of socio-economic topics including health, housing, labour market, education and literacy, as well as demographic data.
The "Special Surveys" Personal Information Bank (Bank number: StatCan PPU 016) is published on the Statistics Canada website under the latest Information about Programs and Information Holdings chapter.
Description of statistical activity:
Statistics Canada, under the authority of the Statistics ActFootnote1, is conducting the 2022 Canadian Internet Use Survey (CIUS) on behalf of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED). The purpose of the survey is to gather information on how digital technologies are changing the way Canadians work, play and interact with others. It aims to better understand the impact of the Internet and other digital technologies on the everyday lives of Canadians.
This voluntary survey is conducted via electronic questionnaire and phone interviews and responses will be housed on Statistics Canada's secure collection infrastructure. The survey was previously conducted in 2018 and 2020.
The 2022 CIUS collects some of the same information as previous cycles, including the opinions of the respondent and their activities online. It also collects socio-demographic variables that include personal information to better understand differences across groups and inform policies and programs aimed at bridging gaps in access and use of digital technologies. Much of the demographic related personal information collected by the CIUS is considered harmonized content and is standard for social surveys and has been assessed in the Generic Privacy Impact AssessmentFootnote2 (PIA). This includes:
- full name
- age
- date of birth
- gender
- level of education
- household relationships
- indigenous identity
- population group
- disability status
- education
- immigration status
- language
- remote locations
These demographic questions are important to fill data gaps for policy and research purposes. Direct identifiers such as full name, date of birth and address are separated from the rest of the survey responses to protect the privacy of respondents, as part of standard Statistics Canada procedures.
Further, the CIUS 2022 has added new questions on three concepts:
- victimization
- seeing harmful content online
- negative effects from using the Internet
Results of the survey are published in aggregate format in Statistics Canada's official release vehicle The Daily. High level data tables are released along with The Daily publication, which provide additional supplemental aggregate information. Microdata is also made available through Statistics Canada's internal Social Data Linkage EnvironmentFootnote3 (SDLE) for internal uses, as well as in both the Research Data CentersFootnote4 (RDC) and via a Public Use Microdata file (PUMF) for external uses. In any of these cases any personal information that could directly identify a person is removed from the data file to uphold confidentiality and privacy.
Statistics Canada's microdata linkage and related statistical activities were assessed in Statistics Canada's Generic Privacy Impact Assessment.Footnote5 All data linkage activities are subject to established governanceFootnote6, and are assessed against the privacy principles of necessity and proportionalityFootnote7. All approved linkages are published on Statistics Canada's websiteFootnote8.
The Investment, Science and Technology Division will analyze the survey results, in aggregate form and without direct personal identifiers, to generate more than 80 client data tables which include all indicators in the survey, broken down by demographics and location. ISED uses these microdata tables with no identifiers to inform policies and programs aimed at providing Canadians with more reliable and affordable high-speed Internet, through the Universal Broadband Fund, which is a program that supports high-speed Internet projects across the country. Information on spending on digital goods and services and use of peer-to-peer services from the CIUS are used by Statistics Canada to fill important data gaps in the system of national accounts. Results from the CIUS are used by a wide range of stakeholders to inform policies and programs aimed at improving Canadians' digital skills, cybersecurity awareness, and digital well-being. Lastly, researchers and journalists use results from the CIUS to provide the public and industry leaders with information about the current state of the digital economy and how it has changed over time. No information that can directly identify any individuals is ever published or shared.
Reason for supplement:
While the Generic PIA addresses most of the privacy and security risks related to statistical activities conducted by Statistics Canada, this supplement is being conducted due to the sensitivity of this cycle's newly added questions regarding victimization and harmful content.
As is the case with all PIAs, Statistics Canada's privacy framework ensures that elements of privacy protection and privacy controls are documented and applied.
Necessity and Proportionality
The collection and use of personal information for the Canadian Internet Use Survey can be justified against Statistics Canada's Necessity and Proportionality Framework:
Necessity:
The personal information that is collected by the CIUS is necessary to provide relevant data to inform government programs and policies related to digital technology adoption, specifically policies and programs aimed at providing Canadians with more reliable and affordable high-speed Internet. To provide pertinent data, the CIUS must collect personal information related to demographic information including age, gender, level of education, and household relationships for methodological purposes such as to create survey weights. Date of birth and full names of respondents are collected as they are required to enable record linkage. Collecting demographic information is required by Statistics Canada to disaggregate indicators and characteristics which help to create an understanding of which groups experience barriers to accessing the Internet and various online services.
Personal information on population group, indigenous identity, self-reported gender, disability status, immigration status and remote locations are required to identify which groups experience barriers to accessing the Internet and online services. Addressing gaps in services such as e-government, e-commerce, etc. require a breakdown of who is experiencing issues in this regard, which can only be done by collecting this information directly as it relates to their opinions collected in the CIUS. This information is also critical in order to know which groups have the skills needed to use the Internet and are adopting digital technologies to function in an increasingly digital world, which is directly related to the purpose of the CIUS.
Finally, the new questions added to the CIUS on seeing harmful content are required to fill an important data gap identified by the federal governmentFootnote9. The newly added questions on victimization and negative effects are also required to increase the relevant insights being derived from this survey.
Effectiveness - Working assumptions:
The personal information related to demographics being collected in the CIUS is primarily harmonized content, and the related questions have been tested thoroughly by Statistics Canada (StatCan) to establish their effectiveness and are used by countless social surveys. StatCan will disaggregate the data at a level that upholds quality standards and the confidentiality of respondents.
Apart from harmonized content, most of the questions on the CIUS are not found on other surveys. The questions are tailored to give specific data that is meant to inform evidence-based policy making, research, and program development and to provide international comparability regarding the use of digital technologies. The CIUS asks about opinions of the respondent as to their experiences online. The most effective way to better understand individuals' experiences online is for them to self-report on those experiences. This data will then be available to inform policy and research aimed at making the online sphere accessible and safe for all Canadians.
The CIUS follows the same methodology of most social surveys by which the data is not released if it does not have an appropriate quality indicator (QI) / confidence interval (CI). The QI and CI are determined by the methodology team assigned to the CIUS and are standard among many social surveys at StatCan. This effectively ensures that surveys uphold integrity by having comparable methodology / confidentiality.
The release of de-identified microdata from the CIUS in the RDCs and PUMF allows researchers and policy analysts outside the agency to perform sophisticated analysis that require this type of individual level data (e.g. to build regression models).
Proportionality:
Statistics Canada took the sensitivity of the personal information being requested into account while developing the CIUS. The personal information being collected in the survey includes various socio-demographics that would otherwise be considered sensitive. These questions originate from harmonized content that serves to standardize the questions and responses, and thus reduce the impact to privacy; they are used regularly in social surveys across the agency. The sensitivity of the personal information collected in these questions is proportional to the loss of privacy of respondents as it is only asking what is required for the classification and allow the linkage of this information with other existing datasets to increase the value to the data being collected as part of this survey.
For other content in the survey, the approach to collecting information is to ask respondents directly about their experiences online. Collecting self-reported data is crucial to ensuring that all responses are coming directly from the source and that experiences are not overlooked. This is an approach common to most social surveys and outweighs the use of alternative data sources for the types of questions being asked. Self-reported data is important to track changes in online experiences over time.
The particularly sensitive questions in the CIUS are important as they give policy-makers valuable information on how individuals are being impacted by interactions online and the proportion of individuals who experience victimization. The new questions added to the CIUS on seeing harmful content online ask only what is necessary to collect information on this important topic that has yet to be explored. Lastly, the question in the survey about negative effects is not completely new: in CIUS 2018 there was a similar question with a focus on the use of social media and "negative effects". Its absence was noticed in 2020 by various partners, as the social effects of digitalization are an important topic for policy and research. For 2022, the question was re-introduced, but the question was modified to focus on general Internet use, since these effects are not solely related to social media. The questions have been specifically designed to gather data on the potential harms of content and interactions online while leaving out the specifics that would otherwise be overly invasive.
For the questions that are not new (victimization and negative effects), questionnaire testing was conducted by the Questionnaire Development and Research Center (QDRC) at Statistics Canada, who are responsible for the review and refining of questionnaires, in 2018. No problems or concerns were noted at that time by QDRC and the potential respondents. During collection, no issues were raised from respondents or interviewers the sensitive nature of these questions.
For the current iteration (2022), questionnaire testing was conducted through a total of 17 interviews with Canadians who were asked for recommendations / concerns / comments while going through the questionnaire. There were no issues flagged by respondents or QDRC about the sensitive nature of the questions on victimization, seeing harmful content online or negative effects. Minor recommendations on wording were recommended and applied to the questions.
Alternatives:
Currently, no other surveys cover the viewing of harmful content online, and there is no alternative source available.
Statistics Canada's General Social Survey (GSS) asks questions about cyber bullying online and its effects which does relate to victimization. The CIUS question is distinct from the GSS as it incorporates the types of victimization in one high-level question and asks specifically about Internet use.
Lastly, the GSS questions ask about effects from technology as a whole, which is broader than the CIUS question on effects from using the Internet. For the questions on the effects of cyber bullying online, CIUS consulted with the GSS questions for concepts and wording. Overall, the CIUS questions are unique and provide insight in the CIUS context that cannot be inferred from their GSS equivalents.
Further, data for the GSS is collected every five years, while the CIUS is collected every two. The most recent data from the GSS published on this topic was for the 2014 reference year. Having the CIUS also collect these indicators, but every two years rather than five, creates an important time series of the data, which is crucial to fill data gaps in a rapidly changing and evolving digital world.
As these questions are self-reported by nature, it isn't possible to collect this data in any other form other than through survey questions.
Mitigation factors:
Some questions in the CIUS are considered sensitive as they relate to victimization, seeing harmful content online and negative effects from using the Internet. However, the overall risk of harm to the survey respondents has been deemed manageable with existing Statistics Canada safeguards that are described in Statistics Canada's Generic Privacy Impact Assessment, some of which are highlighted here, as well as with some additional measures:
The CIUS is a voluntary survey. Although all questions are important, respondents can skip sensitive topics such as those on victimization, harmful content and negative effects online. For these questions, if they do not want to answer, they are able to provide a non-response. In addition, during interviewer training, the interviewers are instructed to skip through the questions if they notice that the respondent is feeling uncomfortable or unwilling to answer the questions.
Various safeguards are put in place throughout the development, collection, production and dissemination of the data. During development, questionnaire testing was conducted by the Questionnaire Development and Research Centre (QDRC) including 17 interviews with Canadians who were asked for their opinion on the questions in the survey. Following testing, as there were no issues flagged by respondents about the sensitive nature of the questions on victimization, harmful content and negative effects online, QDRC recommended the survey continue with development and that data be collected.
When the data is processed and disseminated for this survey, various steps are taken to ensure that no personal information that could identify the respondent are released. Individual responses will be grouped with those of others when reporting results. Individual responses and results for very small groups will never be published or shared with government departments or agencies. Careful analysis of the data and consideration will be given prior to the release of aggregate data to ensure that vulnerable individuals are not disproportionally impacted. In the microdata files, the methodology division works with subject matter make sure that the privacy and confidentially of each respondent is respected. Various personal information elements such as full name, mailing address and date of birth are removed from the microdata file to reduce the risk of any individual being re-identified.
Conclusion:
This assessment concludes that the CIUS has taken privacy into account and taken steps to mitigate the risks to the privacy of respondents when collecting potentially sensitive personal information. With the existing Statistics Canada safeguards and mitigation factors listed above, any remaining risks are such that Statistics Canada is prepared to accept and manage the risk.