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AI-Assisted Web and Document Data Extraction for Statistics

Research & Development · Planning & Decision-making

What it collects

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Publicly available PDF reports scraped from websites. These are administrative or research documents, not personal data — they describe organizational or statistical information rather than any specific individual.
Run by
Statistics Canada (StatCan)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization
Your copy
You cannot see the data it holds about you. What you can do

What it is for

Research & DevelopmentPlanning & Decision-making

This system automatically extracts text from PDF reports found on websites and applies AI-based reasoning and classification to organize the information. It is used by Statistics Canada employees, not members of the public, to support data collection and analysis work. The system is currently in development. Citizens should be aware that this tool processes publicly available reports, not personal data, to support government statistical programs.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Publicly available PDF reports scraped from websites. These are administrative or research documents, not personal data — they describe organizational or statistical information rather than any specific individual.

Processing

Classification & Prediction
  • Reasoning and classification models assign labels or categories to extracted text from PDF documents, organizing the content for downstream statistical use by GC employees.

What it does

Sensing (Perceptive AI)
Human decides
  • AiWAT scrapes websites and reads PDF documents, extracting structured text from raw document signals — converting unstructured PDF content into fields usable by downstream classification processes.
Deciding (Analytical AI)
Human decides
  • AiDAT applies reasoning and classification models to the extracted text, scoring or categorizing document content to support statistical analysis by GC employees who review and act on the results.

Outputs

Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Structured, classified text extracted from PDF reports — organized document content and category labels produced for use by Statistics Canada employees in analytical and statistical workflows.

Run by

Statistics Canada (StatCan)
  • Statistics Canada is the federal department responsible for producing statistics to help Canadians better understand their country. It is the deploying organization for the AiWAT and AiDAT systems.

Government of Canada AI Register — Department field

Built by

Government of Canada
  • The system was developed internally by the Government of Canada rather than by an external commercial vendor.

Government of Canada AI Register — Developed by field

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Not available to me
  • The outputs of this system are internal to Statistics Canada and are available only to GC employees. Members of the public do not have direct access to the system or its outputs.
Available to the accountable organization
  • Outputs are available to Statistics Canada employees (GC employees) who use them to support statistical data collection and analysis tasks.

Stored

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

How to read the colours

Can it identify you?

Anonymized data
Data about people with the link to who is broken. Stripped of identifiers, blurred, aggregated, or noised so this system can’t reasonably tie a record back to an individual.
Pseudonymous data
Each person’s data is tied to a token (hash, ID, template) that lets this system recognise the same person across events, but the token itself doesn’t reveal a name. Reidentification is possible with extra information.
Identifiable data
The data either contains a direct identifier (name, address, account name, recognisable face or voice, plate number) or carries a token this system uses to look up legal identity during processing.

Who completes the loop?

Human decides
This mode suggests; a person decides what to do next. The AI is always advisory — a human is in the loop on every decision. Example: a triage tool ranks cases for a clinician who chooses which to see first.
Human executes
This mode decides; a person carries out the result. Example: an optimizer plans the day’s trash-collection routes, and drivers run them.
Autonomous
This mode decides and acts on its own. No person reviews each decision or carries out the resulting action.

Definitions from the DTPR standard. Amber is about your data, violet about who decides. The fuller the shape and the deeper the colour, the more identifying the data or the less a person is involved.

What you can do

Ask about this system

Questions go to the Helpful Places, not the vendor.

Your rights

  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyThis system is disclosed on the Government of Canada's AI and Algorithmic Systems Registry. Members of the public can consult the registry entry at the source URL for information about how the system operates. For further inquiries, contact Statistics Canada through official government channels.

Risks and safeguards

No risks or safeguards have been published for this system yet.