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AI Writing and Data Assistant for Office Productivity

Employment & Work

What it collects that can identify you

About behaviour
Identifiable data
  • Text entered by employees in Word documents, Outlook emails, and Excel spreadsheets — including drafts, queries, and prompts submitted to the Copilot assistant — constitutes runtime input to the system.

Also collects operational data, which is anonymized data.

Run by
Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA)
Where
No fixed location
Kept
Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with
Accountable organization, Vendor

What it is for

Employment & Work

Microsoft Copilot is an AI-powered assistant embedded in Microsoft Office tools (Word, Outlook, Excel) used by Canadian Air Transport Security Authority employees. It helps staff write and edit documents more efficiently and surfaces data insights and visualizations in spreadsheets. This system is used internally by government employees and does not directly affect members of the public, but it processes workplace data including email and documents written by staff.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About behaviour
Identifiable data
  • Text entered by employees in Word documents, Outlook emails, and Excel spreadsheets — including drafts, queries, and prompts submitted to the Copilot assistant — constitutes runtime input to the system.
Operational data
Anonymized data
  • Structured data in Excel spreadsheets, such as organizational datasets, numerical tables, and records, is processed by the AI to identify patterns and generate visualizations and insights.

Processing

Language Models
  • Microsoft Copilot is built on large language models (LLMs) that process natural language input from employees and generate text suggestions, summaries, and edits in Word and Outlook.
Classification & Prediction
  • In Excel, the system uses statistical and machine learning techniques to analyze data patterns and produce predictive insights and trend forecasts.

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • Copilot generates writing suggestions, grammar improvements, style edits, and drafted content in Word and Outlook. Employees review and decide whether to accept or modify the generated output.
Deciding (Analytical AI)
Human decides
  • In Excel, Copilot analyzes data patterns and trends to produce predictive insights and formatted visualizations. Employees use these insights to inform their decision-making.

Outputs

Generated content
Identifiable data
  • Copilot produces AI-generated text suggestions, grammar and style improvements, and drafted content in Word and Outlook that employees can choose to adopt into their work documents and emails.
A recommendation or prediction
Anonymized data
  • In Excel, the system outputs predictive insights, trend analyses, and formatted visualizations derived from the employee's data, presented as advisory outputs to support decision-making.

Run by

Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA)
  • CATSA is the federal department that deploys and operates Microsoft Copilot for Office Suite for use by its employees as a productivity tool.

Government of Canada AI Register — CATSA entry

Built by

Microsoft
  • Microsoft is the vendor that builds and licenses the Copilot AI system embedded in the Office Suite applications used by CATSA employees.

Government of Canada AI Register — CATSA entry

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • CATSA, as the deploying organization, has access to the outputs and interactions generated through Copilot within its Microsoft 365 tenant environment, subject to Microsoft's data governance terms.
Available to vendor
  • Microsoft, as the vendor, may have access to interaction data processed through Copilot as governed by the Microsoft 365 service agreement and applicable data processing terms.

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 Be Informed of AI UseGC employees using Microsoft Office tools are informed that AI-powered Copilot features are active within the applications. Employees interact with the Copilot interface knowingly when submitting prompts or accepting suggestions.
  • Right to Algorithmic TransparencyInformation about how Microsoft Copilot works, including the AI models and logic involved, is available through Microsoft's published documentation and the Government of Canada's AI register entry for this system.

Risks and safeguards

  • Psychological harmOver-reliance on AI-generated writing suggestions may erode employees' own writing skills or create pressure to adopt AI-drafted content uncritically.Safeguard: Copilot operates in an advisory capacity — employees must actively choose to accept or modify suggestions, preserving human agency in the final output.
  • Societal & cultural harmAI-generated writing suggestions may reflect the biases embedded in the underlying language model's training data, potentially homogenizing institutional writing styles or introducing culturally inappropriate phrasing in bilingual government communications.Safeguard: Employees are expected to review and edit all AI-generated content before use; official government communications remain subject to standard review processes.