AI-Assisted Sentiment Analysis of Client Satisfaction Surveys

Inform

What it collects

About behaviour

Anonymized data

Open-ended and structured survey responses submitted by SSC's government partners and clients about their satisfaction with SSC services. The register confirms no personal information is involved.

Run by: Shared Services Canada (SSC)
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

Inform

This system uses AI to automatically analyze the sentiment expressed in surveys completed by Shared Services Canada's government partners and clients about their satisfaction with SSC services. The AI extracts positive, negative, or neutral sentiment signals from open-ended survey responses on a regular basis. The surveys do not collect personal information. Government of Canada employees are the primary users of the insights generated.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About behaviour

Anonymized data

Open-ended and structured survey responses submitted by SSC's government partners and clients about their satisfaction with SSC services. The register confirms no personal information is involved.

Processing

Affect & Emotion Analysis

Sentiment analysis is applied to free-text survey responses from SSC partners and clients to determine whether feedback is positive, negative, or neutral regarding SSC service delivery.

What it does

Sensing (Perceptive AI)

Human decides

The system reads survey text responses and extracts structured sentiment signals (positive, negative, neutral) for use by GC employees who interpret the findings and make service decisions.

Deciding (Analytical AI)

Human decides

The system classifies and scores survey responses by sentiment category, producing aggregated satisfaction signals that GC employees use to assess service quality trends.

Outputs

About a measurement

Anonymized data

Sentiment scores and classifications derived from survey responses, representing aggregate satisfaction signals about SSC service quality. No personal information is contained in the output.

A recommendation or prediction

Anonymized data

Sentiment analysis results serve as advisory signals to GC employees about client satisfaction levels, informing but not determining service improvement decisions made by human staff.

Run by

Shared Services Canada (SSC)

Shared Services Canada (SSC) deploys and operates the CSFI system to extract sentiment from client satisfaction surveys completed by its government partners and clients.

Government of Canada AI Register — CSFI

Built by

Government of Canada

The system was developed internally by the Government of Canada, with no external vendor named in the register entry.

Government of Canada AI Register — CSFI

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Not available to me

Individual survey sentiment outputs are not available to survey respondents. The system produces aggregate insights used internally by Shared Services Canada employees.

Available to the accountable organization

Sentiment analysis outputs are available to Shared Services Canada employees, who use them to assess and improve service delivery to GC partners and clients.

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 TransparencyThe Government of Canada AI Register publicly discloses that AI sentiment analysis is used on client satisfaction surveys. Note: the register indicates that AI use is not disclosed to survey participants directly (AI use disclosed to users: N). Citizens may request information about GC AI systems through Access to Information requests to Shared Services Canada.
Right to Be Informed of AI UseThe register explicitly states that AI use is not disclosed to survey participants (AI use disclosed to users: N). This means clients and partners completing surveys are not currently informed that their responses are analyzed by AI. Individuals seeking to understand this practice may contact Shared Services Canada through official GC channels.

Risks and safeguards

Reputational harmSentiment misclassification could lead to inaccurate characterizations of partner or client satisfaction, potentially influencing service decisions unfairly.Safeguard: Outputs are advisory only and reviewed by GC employees; no personal information is processed, limiting individual-level harm. The system is used for aggregate trend analysis rather than individual-level decisions.