AI Assistant for Generative Text and Content Tasks

Inform

What it collects that can identify you

About behaviour

Identifiable data

Prompts and queries entered by GC employees when interacting with the service, which may contain work-related content, regulatory questions, or other government business text.

Run by: Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
Where: No fixed location
Kept: Not stated by the Helpful Places.
Shared with: Accountable organization, Vendor

What it is for

Inform

This system gives Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) employees access to Microsoft Azure-hosted OpenAI generative AI models (including GPT-4 and GPT-4 Omni) for tasks such as drafting, summarizing, and researching content. It is used internally by government staff and is not directly accessed by the public. Citizens should be aware that government employees may use this tool when producing documents or responses that could affect regulatory decisions.

What it collects and what happens to it

Data taken in

About behaviour

Identifiable data

Prompts and queries entered by GC employees when interacting with the service, which may contain work-related content, regulatory questions, or other government business text.

Processing

Language Models

The platform provides access to OpenAI's GPT-4 and GPT-4 Omni large language model families, hosted and managed by Microsoft within the Azure cloud environment.

What it does

Creating (Generative AI)

Human decides

The system generates text and other content in response to prompts from GC employees. Human staff review and decide whether to use the generated output.

Understanding (Semantic AI)

Human decides

The GPT-4 family models also understand and process language semantically, supporting tasks such as summarization, question answering, and document comprehension.

Outputs

Generated content

Anonymized data

Text, summaries, drafts, and other generative content produced by the GPT-4 or GPT-4 Omni models in response to employee prompts. Content is not about specific individuals and is used to support government work.

Run by

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)

The CRTC is the federal government department that deploys and operates this Azure OpenAI Service for use by its employees.

Government of Canada AI Register — Azure Open AI Service (2526-CRTC-002)

Built by

Microsoft

Microsoft is the vendor that builds, hosts, and manages the Azure OpenAI Service platform, providing access to OpenAI's GPT-4 family models within the Azure cloud environment.

Government of Canada AI Register — Azure Open AI Service (2526-CRTC-002)

Kept for

Not stated by the Helpful Places.

Shared with

Available to the accountable organization

Outputs and interaction data produced via the Azure OpenAI Service are accessible to CRTC (and by extension, Microsoft as the platform operator), consistent with the Azure service agreement.

Available to vendor

As a Microsoft-managed cloud platform, Microsoft may have access to interaction data subject to the Azure service terms and applicable privacy agreements.

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 in the Government of Canada's AI Register. Members of the public can consult the register at open.canada.ca to learn about AI systems in use across the federal government, including this deployment at the CRTC.
Right to Be Informed of AI UseThe Government of Canada publishes information about its use of AI tools through the public AI Register. Citizens interacting with the CRTC should be aware that staff may use AI-assisted tools in preparing responses and documents.

Risks and safeguards

Societal & cultural harmGenerative AI models may produce hallucinations, biased content, or culturally inappropriate outputs that could influence regulatory documents or decisions. Mitigation relies on human review by GC employees before any generated content is used in official contexts. As a Microsoft-managed platform, Microsoft's responsible AI guidelines and Azure content filters apply to reduce harmful outputs.
Reputational harmAI-generated content used in regulatory or public-facing decisions without sufficient review could misrepresent individuals or organizations. Mitigation includes requiring employee oversight before using AI outputs in official communications, and adherence to CRTC and Treasury Board guidelines on responsible AI use in government.