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AI-Assisted Tax Collections Diary Note Search

Employment & Work · Enforcement

What it collects that can identify you

Sensitive personal information
Identifiable data
  • Diary notes from the ACSES system contain taxpayer financial information across Individual (T1), Corporation (T2), Trust (T3), GST/HST, Payroll, Collections or Audit Records, Partnerships, Excise Taxes, and Excise Duties accounts. This includes personal financial details, enforcement history, and legal actions.

Also collects operational data, which is anonymized data.

Run by
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)
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

This system helps Canada Revenue Agency collections staff search and retrieve diary notes from the ACSES case management system using natural language queries and AI-generated summaries. It processes taxpayer account records — including previous enforcement actions, phone calls, and legal warnings — to make relevant information easier to find. The system is used only by CRA employees, not the public, but it handles personal tax information about individuals and corporations. CRA has disclosed that AI is used in this tool.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

Sensitive personal information
Identifiable data
  • Diary notes from the ACSES system contain taxpayer financial information across Individual (T1), Corporation (T2), Trust (T3), GST/HST, Payroll, Collections or Audit Records, Partnerships, Excise Taxes, and Excise Duties accounts. This includes personal financial details, enforcement history, and legal actions.
Operational data
Anonymized data
  • ACSES diary notes also contain operational and procedural records such as account actions, case notes, and collections history that describe how enforcement activities were conducted on tax accounts.

Processing

Language Models
  • The system uses language models to enable natural language search and content generation over ACSES diary notes, developed on AWS infrastructure. Capabilities include Text and/or Speech Analysis and Content Generation (e.g., Generative AI).
Search & Retrieval
  • The system provides semantic search and retrieval across all ACSES diary notes to surface relevant entries in response to employee queries, identifying specific details such as previous account actions, phone calls made, and associated account numbers.

What it does

Understanding (Semantic AI)
Human decides
  • Advanced natural language processing enables employees to search across all ACSES diary notes to identify specific and relevant information, including previous actions taken on accounts such as Requirements to Pay issued, phone calls made, associated account numbers, and legal warnings.
Creating (Generative AI)
Human decides
  • Content generation (generative AI) is used to synthesize and surface information from diary notes, potentially producing summaries or structured responses to employee queries about taxpayer account history.

Outputs

Generated content
Anonymized data
  • The system generates synthesized responses and summaries drawn from ACSES diary notes to answer employee queries. Outputs may include extracted or summarized information about previous account actions, legal warnings, and collections history.
A recommendation or prediction
Anonymized data
  • The system surfaces relevant diary note entries and identified information to support employee decision-making in collections cases. Results are advisory — the CRA employee decides what action to take based on the information retrieved.

Run by

Canada Revenue Agency (CRA)
  • The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is the federal department responsible for tax administration and revenue collection in Canada. CRA deploys and operates this AI system to support its Collections and Verification Branch employees.

Canada AI Register — record 2526-CRA-ARC-006

Built by

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
  • AWS is the technology vendor that built and supplies the AI system. The solution is developed by a vendor on behalf of CRA.

Canada AI Register — record 2526-CRA-ARC-006 (Vendor: AWS)

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization
  • Outputs and search results are available to CRA Collections and Verification Branch employees (GC employees) only. The system is a self-serve internal tool for CRA staff.
Not available to me
  • The system and its outputs are not accessible to the taxpayers whose information is being processed. Only CRA employees use this tool.

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 UseCRA has disclosed that AI is used in this system (AI use disclosed to users: Yes). Taxpayers whose records are processed are subject to CRA's general privacy and data handling policies. For information about how CRA uses your personal information, contact the CRA Privacy Office or visit canada.ca/cra.
  • Right to AccessTaxpayers have the right to access personal information held about them by the CRA, including tax account records, under the Privacy Act and the Access to Information Act. Contact the CRA Access to Information and Privacy office to submit a formal request.

Risks and safeguards

  • Reputational harmAI-generated summaries or search results could misrepresent a taxpayer's collections history, leading to incorrect enforcement actions or reputational harm to individuals or corporations.Safeguard: The system is advisory only — CRA employees make final decisions on enforcement actions. Outputs should be verified against source diary notes before any consequential action is taken.
  • Civil liberties harmThe system processes sensitive personal tax information and collections enforcement history. Inappropriate access or use of AI-retrieved information could compromise taxpayer due process rights in collections proceedings.Safeguard: Access is restricted to GC employees in the Collections and Verification Branch; CRA privacy and access control policies govern use. AI use has been disclosed publicly.